a) There are two patterns displayed in the graph shown. One is that the House of Representatives and the Senate lines on the graph are inverses of each other. For example, in 1981, while the re-election rates in the House of Representatives were up and around the 90 percentage, the re-election rates in the Senate plunged to half of that rate, around the 55 percentage. Another pattern is that the House of Representatives' re-election rate is always and constantly higher than that of the Senate's.
b) One factor that contributes to incumbency advantage is wealth, it takes a whole lot of money to run a candidacy. The fact that elections take a lot of money to run makes it very common to have wealthy business owner or someone who comes from money run for re-election. The other factor that contributes to incumbency advantage is that the citizens already know the incumbents name, face, and what they stand for. Since they already have political background and experience, it makes it easier for a voter to choose them, rather than some yahoo that is running for the first time.
c) One consequence of incumbency advantage is that since they continue to be re-elected, there is a higher chance of corruption in Congress. Nowadays we hear every day about a new senator or representative scandal. If the incumbents were never re-elected, there would be no chance for the congress men and women to get antsy and start doing or participating in illegal things rather than focusing on doing their job and serving their country.
The graph above shows reelection rates for incumbents in the House and Senate. From this information and your knowledge of of the US politics, perform the following
tasks.
a) identify two patterns displayed in the graph
b) identify 2 factors that contribute to incumbency advantage. Explain how each factor contributes to incumbency advantage.
c) Discuss one consequence of incumbency advantage for the US political process
http://apcentral.collegeboard.com/apc/members/repository/govpol_us_01.pdf
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