COMMENTARY ON GOVERNMENT : How Representative Are Our Local Elected Officials? Not Very : The average Orange County officeholder is much more likely than the average constituent to be a white, male, well-educated and affluent Republican homeowner.

How well are Orange County residents represented by their local elected officials? To answer this question, among others, we conducted a survey in late 1991 of elected officials in Orange County cities (with a response rate of 60%).

To begin to evaluate representation in Orange County cities we need standards to measure the relationship between representative and constituents. One view requires representatives to resemble the people they serve in government. John Adams observed that representative assemblies “should be an exact portrait, in miniature, of the people at large, as it should think, feel, reason, and act like them.” If representatives resemble, in important characteristics, those whom they represent, representatives can be trusted to act in the best interests of their constituents.

In a second view, a representative is obliged to do what his or her constituents expect; to act as if his or her constituents were acting themselves. Elected representatives, said Thomas Paine, must never “form to themselves an interest separate from the electors.” We can measure this “delegate” view of representation by the congruence between the attitudes of representatives and their constituents. The greater the congruence, the better the quality of representation.

Are elected representatives in Orange County a “portrait in miniature” of their constituents? Hardly. A typical “local representative” in Orange County is a college-educated, white male who is married and has lived in the county for more than 20 years. He is a homeowner with an annual income of $86,000 and a registered Republican.

The profile of the “typical” Orange County resident, derived from 1990 U.S. Census data, is very different. Only 29% of Orange County residents have a college degree compared to 73% of local representatives. While the distribution of men and women in the general population is nearly even, 73% of local elected officials are men and only 27% are women. Over 87% of elected officials are married, compared to 58% for the public. Nearly every elected official surveyed (99%) is a homeowner and many also own investment properties (36%), whereas 40% of county residents are renters. The median household income for county residents is $45,900, but is nearly double for elected officials in our survey at $86,000.

Though minorities comprise about 35% of the county population, 92% of local representatives are white; only 7% are Latino. Not unexpectedly, Republican representatives outnumber Democratic ones by a 2-to-1 ratio, although there are more Republican officials (67%) than registered Republican voters (56%) in the county.

That elected representatives might not resemble their constituents is neither unexpected nor necessarily consequential for the quality of representation. Nevertheless, when the portraits of representatives and constituents are so distinctive, as suggested by our survey results, the residents of Orange County have legitimate cause for concern.

As the American electorate looks to replace entrenched incumbents with “citizen-legislators,” reducing the substantial differences between local representatives and the public may be a worthy remedy.

Are the attitudes of elected representatives congruent with those of their constituents? In general, the answer is yes, but with some significant exceptions.

When asked to rank in order of importance public policy issues facing the county, elected representatives and respondents to the 1991 Orange County Annual Survey exhibited very similar priorities. Transportation and traffic congestion came first for both, followed in descending order by crime and public safety, housing costs and availability, population growth and development, quality of public schools and foreign immigration. The issue of child care is an exception. While more than 10% of the public believed child care is the most important social problem facing the country, only a handful of elected representatives thought so.

Moreover, local representatives concentrated their attention on fewer issues than the public. Both groups view transportation and traffic congestion as important by sizable percentages. On other issues, the priorities of the public are more evenly distributed, with less than six percentage points separating the second from the sixth most important issues for surveyed representatives.

Development is one issue where the attitudes of representatives and constituents are sharply incongruent. Seventy-eight percent of the representatives believed current government regulations in their city controlling growth are “about right.” Only 36% of the public agreed. Conversely, 40% of the public thought current city regulations were not “strict enough” to adequately control growth. Only one out of four representatives shared this view. The public wants tighter controls on growth, while representatives think the pace of growth is “about right.”

Illustrative of some congruity on this issue is the survey finding that most cities are not planning much building during the next decade. Seventy-six percent of the representatives said their city will add only 1,000 to 4,000 new housing units to their housing stock during that period, 16% said their city will add 5,000 to 9,000 new units, and only 8% said their city intends to add 10,000 or more units. In this last group of cities heated clashes over the pace of development are likely.

Roughly 40% of the representatives surveyed and the public shared the belief that good economic times lie ahead for the county. Yet, more than 50% of the public believed a depression is in the county’s future, with 43% of the representatives as pessimistic. Representatives are also slightly more optimistic about “how well things are going” in the county when it comes to assessing the quality of life. However, such optimism is not universal. Thirteen percent of female representatives believed things are going “very badly” in the county compared to only 7% of the public and a scant 2% of male representatives.

Representatives and the public shared many of the same priorities, but with different intensities and occasionally very different attitudes, as evident with growth and development. How can such differences be explained? On the one hand, local representatives may need to devote scarce time, energy and public funds to a smaller number of issues in order to accomplish anything at all.

On the other hand, representatives may have interests separate from their constituents, for a variety of reasons, resulting in different attitudes about policy issues. For example, since nearly all local representatives are homeowners, it’s understandable that they may be less personally concerned about housing costs and availability. Likewise, since 68% of the representatives surveyed have children over 18 years of age, child care is probably not much of a personal priority for elected officials.

Both small and large differences in the attributes and attitudes of representatives and constituents help to account for the declining confidence in government--here in Orange County and throughout the nation. In 1991, only 29% of respondents to the Orange County Annual Survey rated their local government as either good or excellent, down from 48% in 1982.

To restore confidence in government, the quality of representation must be enhanced--meaning the election of individuals who better resemble the communities they want to represent and individuals bound to constituents by a “community of interests and sympathy of sentiments,” as James Madison said. This is an election year. In the words of a less distinguished philosopher, “let’s get busy.”