Self Interest in Politics: An Odd Yet Need-to-Understand Issue If You Want to Influence Politics
American Eclectic
June 1, 2023
In Gore Vidal’s novel, Washington, D.C.: A Novel, the sixth in his series on Narratives of Empire covering America from 1775 to 2000, Vidal refers to Senator Burden Day reflecting on how he sees politics:
He had learned very early that to do any good thing in the Senate, one must first present it as an act of self-interest since to do good for its own sake aroused suspicion. Mrs. [Eleanor] Roosevelt had been genuinely hated for what seemed to many to be a genuine lack of self-interest. Ultimately she had been effective only because certain Senators, disliking her, decided that she was at heart a superb Machiavelli, using the public money to attract the unwashed to the Roosevelt banner. Self-interest acknowledged, even she could occasionally work a miracle in the Congress.
To some extent this quote fits in well with a quote from the movie Bulworth (1999, Warren Beatty, Halle Berry, Oliver Platt). There is a scene where Senator Jay Billington Bulworth (Beatty) is speaking at a black church, and he is asked why he had done nothing for the black community. Bulworth responds, “Well, ‘cause you haven’t really contributed any money to my campaign. …If you don’t put down the malt liquor and chicken wings and get behind somebody other than a running back who stabs his wife, you’re gonna never get rid of somebody like me.” (The running back is O.J. Simpson)
Self-interest and money. Not every group can contribute the type of money Elon Musk has lying around but there are ways to touch the nerve of elected officials. Notice that in the quote from Vidal’s novel, he refers to the “unwashed,” in other words those without money, but they show up at the voting booth. Senators recognized that Eleanor Roosevelt managed to arouse a new voting block and that they took notice of that.
Mass shootings are a case in point. Between the Columbine High School shooting in Colorado in 1999 in which 12 students and one teacher were killed and the Robb Elementary School shooting in Uvalde, Texas last year in which 19 children and two teachers were killed, by one estimate there have been 338 mass shooting in those 23 years. Finally, a law passed both Houses in Congress and President Biden signed it at the end of June last year which did some things to address gun violence, such as enhancing background checks and providing money for mental health services. President Biden stated regarding the bill, “This bill doesn’t do everything I want, but includes actions I’ve longed called for that saves life.” Two things about his statement: 1) The statement reflects politics as the normal, give and take, compromise and never getting everything someone or anyone wants—Biden could have said the same about lots of bills (the same can apply to the Debt ceiling agreement), and 2) We do not know if lives might possibly be saved, hope is the best there is. The vote in the House of Representatives was 234-193 and in the Senate 65-33.
The vote in both Houses in Congress reflected that there was no groundswell to do something, just a bit of a movement. In the House of Representatives, 14 Republicans voted to approve the bill, in the Senate 15 Republicans voted for the bill: The needle moved just a little on guns. Self-interest had a role to play, money may have taken a back seat-at least temporarily. It is a good idea to realize that nothing is really settled about this bill: Expect legal challenges. Furthermore, expect those House and Senate members, particularly Republicans who supported the bill to receive renewed pressure from groups opposed to basically any type of gun regulation to let their members of Congress know that the sky has fallen, and their gun rights have been threatened: Exaggeration goes with political vocalization.
Senator Mitch McConnell (R, KY), the Senate Minority Leader, who supported the gun bill (Bipartisan Safer Communities Act) was censured by the Jessamine County, Kentucky Republican Party as they put it “[he backed] dangerous and unconstitutional legislation.” No doubt they oppose the part of the bill that expands mental health services and suicide prevention programs. They also stated that they oppose “red flag laws,” because as they stated, “[They] are a dangerous violation of the Second Amendment and the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendment’s right to due process.” Why worry about mentally unbalanced people with guns? I guess the Jessamine County Republicans assume as long as it’s a good guy with a gun (using the NRA rhetoric), mentally stable or not, what can go wrong? I also had to wonder as I read the statement made by the Jessamine County Republicans, if they could actually go through some extended discussion on the Second, Fifth, and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution. It is good to know this is a group of Constitutional scholars.
Red flag laws, the process of petitioning to take firearms away from someone deemed a threat, either to themselves or others, might work. As with so much in public policy, which is why it is so easy to challenge the effectiveness of public policies, there are indications something works but rockets going off screaming “success” in neon signs are rare. A study regarding red flag laws stated:
It is impossible to know whether violence would have occurred had ERPOs [extreme risk protection orders] not been issued, and the authors make no claim of a causal relationship. Nonetheless, the cases suggest that this urgent, individualized intervention can play a role in efforts to prevent mass shootings, in health care settings and elsewhere.
…Legislatures in Connecticut, Indiana, California, and Florida enacted ERPO or risk warrant laws after public mass shootings occurred in those states. Postevent investigations of mass shootings suggest that ERPOs and risk warrants can play a role in preventing them.
Self-interest requires that those voters who supported this piece of legislation understand they cannot go home and feel good that something was done and that was it: They need to keep voicing support, particularly to the 14 House Republicans and 15 Senate Republicans that they liked their votes. A former Australian Prime Minister stated, “The punters know that the horse named Morality rarely gets past the post, whereas the nag named Self-interest always runs a good race.” Politicians continually feel the pressure of their next campaign and that pressure comes as letters, emails, telegrams (maybe) arrive at their offices, and they hear the voters who are loudly in front of them, not the ones that went home.
I have known several politicians who have lost races, a former governor, someone who ran for an open seat in Congress (House of Representatives), someone who ran for an open state senate seat, and someone who challenged an incumbent city council member, to think of a few. Each of them privately discussed the pain of losing and how incredibly bad they felt for quite a while after. In public, they presented a face of dignity and maturity, unlike Donald Trump who still cannot display anything but immaturity in the wake of his 2020 election loss. Self-interest is tied to that fear that politicians feel about losing. Senator Lindsey Graham (R., SC) said regarding running for office and so self-interest, “If you don’t want to be re-elected, you’re in the wrong business.” Self-interest and survival go together. Senator John Cornyn (R, TX) must have been feeling the heat and sensed survival after the Texas Republican state convention in June 2022 criticized him for taking part in the negotiations to reach the gun bill signed by President Biden. Cornyn spoke at the convention and received boos.
Money matters, as the fictional Senator Jay Billington Bulworth makes clear, but self-interest matters too. That means that after what looked like a victory, the passage of the gun bill signed by President Biden in June, the dynamics of politics can possibly lead to it being watered down in the future—the background check could sprout leaks in the form of exceptions created.
In 2014, a Supreme Court case (Abramski v United States) with the vote 5-4, the Court ruled that it would not weaken the Gun Control Act of 1968. This act addressed straw man purchases, where someone buys a gun for, usually, someone else who cannot pass the background check. Abramski, a former police officer, tried to make the case that the Gun Control Act of 1968, should not make it illegal for the transfer of guns between people described as law-abiding. Here was an attempt to weaken how guns can get into the hands of less-than-law-abiding-citizens. The lawyer representing Abramski stated, “Congress didn’t use terms like ‘true buyer’ or ‘true purchaser’ or ‘actual buyer’ because they are not concerned about the ultimate recipients of firearms or what happens to a gun after it leaves the gun store.” Reading this incredibly odd statement should lead a normal person to say, “Yes, I am concerned where a gun ends up after it leaves a gun store.”
The Abramski case might be seen as a legal process to weaken the Gun Control Act of 1968 separate from putting political pressure on Congress to pass reasonable access to guns. But the Gun Control Act of 1968 came into existence through the political process. This was a bill that had its origins in the aftermath of former President John F. Kennedy’s assassination in November 1962 but, basically it went nowhere until Martin Luther King was assassinated in April 1968 and two months later Robert Kennedy was killed. Political pressure was then placed on Congress to act. Legal action against gun legislation means nothing unless gun legislation first comes into existence. The political process comes first, creating a law that then leads to challenges in courts, usually with the intent of weakening the law.
The Abramski case is just an indication that a victory, as in the bill President Biden signed, is never really an end: Expect challenges and expect attempts to weaken it. Remember that term self-interest, where politicians are ever tuned to what helps them survive. It is important to not drop your guard and it is important that you keep letting members of Congress know you support legislation like that which President Biden signed. I would also add that it is a good idea, even if you are a Democrat or independent to let the 14 House Republicans and 15 Senate Republicans that supported the background check bill that you thank them for their vote (most are still in Congress). They may need your support, at least for the sake of self-interest.
Notes
Amber Phillips, “What are red-flag laws?” Washington Post (June 14, 2022): https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/06/14/what-is-a-red-flag-law/
Taylor Six, “Central Kentucky county’s Republican Party censures McConnell for supporting gun legislation,” Murray Ledger & Times (July 26, 2022): https://www.murrayledger.com/news/state/central-kentucky-county-s-republican-party-censures-mcconnell-for-supporting-gun-legislation/article_9df9f84a-0c7f-11ed-8307-9f06932b8c4b.html
Garen J. Wintemute, Veronica A. Pear, Julia P. Schleimer, “Extreme Risk Protection Orders Intended to Prevent Mass Shootings,” Annals of Internal Medicine (November 5, 2019): https://www.acpjournals.org/doi/10.7326/M19-2162