Fenno's Paradox Essay

Historically, congress job approval from American citizens has hit an all time low. (The Washington Post) The question that coincides with this fact is, does congress care what the people think? Some congressmen and women would simply say no, some would say yes, and some would say “it’s complicated.” A poll taken in March 2014 conducted by the Bipartisan Policy Center and USA today “showed Congress’ job approval rating at just 19 percent, while people gave their own representatives a 52 percent approval rating.” (Roll Call) There is a name for the inconsistency between the approval and congress and the approval of one’s own representative. This phenomena is called “Fenno’s Paradox” and is named after political scientist Richard Fenno. In simple terms, Fenno’s Paradox “is the belief that people generally disapprove of the United States Congress as a whole, but support the Congressmen from their own Congressional district.” (FindTheData).
This rate gap is not coincidental. The average American voter is likely to know more about the representative of their area than about congress as a whole, making their views based on what they feel their own member has done for their district. This explains why election rates are at around 90%, and …show more content…
Media has a way of portraying our government in a negative way on a daily basis by disclosing the positive things going on in our government and highlighting the negatives. Negative media attacks mixed in with people throwing in their two cents to their peers, either in person, or social media, feed off of each other, creating a negative backlash for congress, even when it isn’t necessarily based on fact. Criticism of congress is justified, but not always. The media also tends to blow things out of proportion, which gets people all worked up and angry, often leading them to simply believe everything they see on the news and on social media without checking the