Question to be answered by Courtney T and Erica W. Considering the terms of office, the qualifications, election methods, compensation, and sessions, what kinds of people do you think are most likely to become legislators?
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3 comments:
Considering the requirements my guess would that the people who are most likely to run/or become legislature are people who are:
1. rich- the 10,000 a year salary if hardly sufficient for to live below the poverty line. Even with the daily allowances, travel expenses, etc… No one can live off that. From what I have seen no one looks like they have missed any meals.
2. They must be a registered voter, so that tells me that are probably older b/c it is a struggle to get my generation to vote.
3. They are probably Caucasian, well lets look at the current legislature and make an assessment. The majority is Caucasian.
4. Although the age requirement is rather low, my guess is that it is pretty hard to on the legislature and the age of 21 or 25. Lack of experience may play a role in that. No one wants a 23-25 year old kid fresh off the farm coming in to the House or the Senate.
5. Lets not forget that are 8 times out 10 going to be a man. It’s a harder race out there for us girls, that’s why I support Hillary even though I don’t think she will win simply b/c she is a woman.
Erica hit the answer on the head. The legislature does tend to be dominated by relatiely well off white males. In fact, we have the lowest percentage of women in the legislature in the nation!
One clarification -- non-whites do fairly well because of how districts lines are drawn. We shall look at this later. But here is the summary -- back in the 1990s black Democrats formed a temporary political marriage of convenience with white Republicans to create more majority-minority legislative districts. This did increase the number of black elected, but it also increased even more the number of almost pur white districts that elected white Republicans. The big losers where white Democrats.
Whether or not this is agood idea or even if it is good for blacks is quite controversial -- we will talk about this later.
The age requirements to be a part of the house and senate are rather low. South Carolina is a very traditional state, and I doubt that they would vote young men to be legislators. The most common method of nomination are party primaries. I think this is the point where a lot of people get cut short. Most likely the people voted into the legislator will be white males who are over 35 years of age. The salary is just not fitting for a young black man with a family. The candidate would almost have to be of retiring age or pretty close to it in order to support a family with that salary. Of course, men are more likely to be elected than men, just as whites are more likely to be elected than blacks especially in South Carolina.
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