Who do we want our elected representatives to look like?

A couple of articles have caught my eye in the last few days, because they each, in different ways, deal with the nature of representation.  First, there is David Brooks' column in the New York Times on June 8 entitled "Politicians Behaving Well".  And second, there is a study in The Chronicle of Higher Education on June 12 asking "How Educated Are State Legislators?"  Each comes at the question from different directions, but arguably each is about the meaning of representation and the role and responsibility of the voter in selecting representatives.

David Brooks quotes Edmund Burke (the 18th century statesman/author/philosopher), and it's worth reproducing part of the quote here.  Burke described his notion of what Brooks calls "political excellence" this way:  "...To be taught to respect one's self; to be habituated to the censorial inspection of the public eye; ...to have leisure to read, to reflect, to converse; to be enabled to draw the court and attention of the wise and learned, wherever they are to be found; ...to be led to a guarded and regulated conduct, from a sense that you are considered as an instructor of your fellow citizens in their highest concerns..."

The Chronicle article looks at state legislators and where/whether they went to college.  Here's a link to an interactive map so that you can look up legislators in any state:  Degrees in the Statehouse.  What do you think?  Should legislators look like the population in terms of education?  In other words, does representation require that our lawmakers be what John Adams called miniature portraits of the people at large?  If so, then most of our state lawmakers would not have a college degree, since only 28% of adults have a bachelor's degree in this country.  On the other hand, as you'll see in The Chronicle article, in looking at our national lawmaking body, three out of four U.S. Senators have graduate degrees of some sort, and the same is true for 65% of members of the U.S. House.  So was James Madison right when he said that our elected representatives should "refine and enlarge the public views" and exercise their wisdom to "best discern the true interest of their country"?

Add to this discussion the misbehavior of members of Congress, most recently exhibited by Rep. Weiner from New York.  Does he exhibit what Burke called "a guarded and regulated conduct"?  Certainly not with his use of his Twitter account!

So what is the role of the voter?  Is it to vote blindly on the basis of a single issue?  Or on the basis of a political party label?  Or on the basis of an endorsement from a public figure or commentator?  Is it to look for evidence of judgment and discernment and experience and maturity in candidates for office?  Is it to look at college degrees for what they might say about learning and knowledge and possibly wisdom?  What is the exemplary behavior (and profile) that we as voters should demand from our elected representatives?