THE OUTCOME of Tuesday's elections must have given migraines to activists in the League of Women Voters and other civic groups that tout legislative contests as means to hold officials' feet to the fire.
Yet elections, especially those between presidential face-offs, serve more to bolster the position of incumbents than to expose them to public accountability.
Big budgets, large staffs and technical assistance aside, Congress is the sapless branch of American politics. Fourteen months after the 9/11 catastrophe, our 535 legislators -- 435 in the House, 100 in the Senate -- have yet to pass a homeland security act. Prescription drug coverage for all senior citizens remains a pipedream. And lawmakers have approved only two (defense and military construction) of the 13 appropriations bills, even though the new budget year began Oct. 1.
Of course, they did summon the courage to pass a $1.35 trillion tax cut and a $180 billion farm bill -- with the greatest benefits flowing, respectively, to the high rollers and corporate giants who stroke big checks for their campaigns.
Congress also turned thumbs up on President Bush's aggressive anti-Iraq resolution, but this pre-election vote showed our legislators to be toothless tabby cats afraid of White House attack dogs rather than advocates for the people. After all, a majority of Americans flinch from attacking Baghdad without the backing of U.S. allies.
If elections provided an instrument with which average citizens could punish do-little, weak-kneed incumbents who cater to powerful interests, we would have witnessed a thorough house-cleaning worthy of a battalion of Molly Maids.
Officially, all 435 House seats and 34 Senate seats were up for grabs. Most of the representatives and senators who stood for re-election held their seats. Given the plethora of legislative pygmies on Capitol Hill, why didn't the electorate "throw the bums out"?
This leads to an ugly truth: No matter how dull-witted, members of Congress have converted the ability to stay in power from an art form into an exact science. Several factors account for the near invincibility of sitting congressmen who manage to stay out of jail:
There's no national funding of congressional campaigns, and incumbents -- because of personal wealth and sweetheart ties to interest groups and political action committees (PACs) -- of both parties of both houses reported Oct. 15 that they spent $484.28 million compared to the $144.69 million that challengers reported spending.
States are responsible for redrawing congressional districts after each Census. State legislators want their federal counterparts to stay in office as long as possible because seniority often equals political muscle. That facilitates the flow of tax dollars to incumbents' home states.
Apart from this Machiavellian reason, states often defer to incumbents in mapping the political landscape. Last year in Virginia, for example, the legislature rubber-stamped the district boundaries agreed upon by the 11 sitting representatives. As a result, most ran unopposed this year, and none faced more than token opposition.
The Maryland General Assembly was a bit less incumbent-friendly, as evidenced by the successful effort to gerrymander Rep. Connie A. Morella out of the House.
Members of Congress have converted Capitol Hill into an incumbent protection fortress. Apart from $150,000 annual salaries and abundant PAC contributions, they have earmarked at least $500,000 a year in public resources to trumpet their supposed accomplishments and to ingratiate themselves with constituents.
These assets include a couple dozen staff members, access to TV and radio studios to communicate with the folks back home, free plane tickets and mailing privileges and the wherewithal to open "constituent service" offices in their districts.
A combination of these advantages meant that Ms. Morella was one of about two dozen House incumbents who faced a serious re-election challenge.
Of course, incumbent lawmakers pride themselves on knowing the views of the people whom they allegedly represent. Yet when top researchers asked congressmen about hometown opinions and then asked citizens about how their representatives voted, it was like two ships passing in the night.
"The representative has very imperfect information about the issue preferences of his constituency, and the constituency's awareness of the policy stands of the representative ordinarily is slight," concluded University of Michigan political scientists Warren Miller and Donald Stokes.
Since they published their findings 39 years ago, the Congress-citizen disconnect has become more acute because of:
Weakening political parties at the grass-roots level.
Enormous increases in campaign expenditures.
Mounting viciousness of TV ads.
Extremely long and tedious campaigns.
Tremendous reliance of candidates on well-heeled donors.
This situation has sharpened popular disdain for politics, as evidenced by the fact that only 38 percent of eligible voters cast ballots in the 1998 midterm election, down from 44 percent in 1970. The Election Day "no shows" are disproportionately the young, the poor, the disadvantaged and minorities. Most of these groups have neither PACs nor largess-dispensing lobbyists prowling the halls of the Capitol on their behalf.
Despite Herculean efforts by the League of Women Voters and like-minded groups, the voice of special interests is likely to become louder, even as more and more lower-income citizens simply drop out of the system.
George W. Grayson teaches government at the University of William & Mary in Williamsburg, Va. He served for 27 years in the Virginia General Assembly.