Most of a politician’s power is to be the last holdout on a vote. Thus, they grandstand and posture about things they may not give one wit about. Then, the side that does care about whatever the issue on the bill is, has to buy their vote with whatever the holdout wants. Typically, it’s something like...”you want that super water intensive project, do ya’? well you’re gonna build it in my state of Arizona.” It doesn’t matter that there’s already a water crisis there because the whole thing is about jobs to build something even if that something won’t be able to operate. Sometimes the real issue is my penis is bigger than your penis.
We’d like to think our politicians think about what the constituents want. After observing Congress for most of my life I’ve come to the conclusion that the wants or needs of the citizens don’t factor in most votes.
I believe that the majority of them only care about what their collective group of large campaign contributor special interests want. They NEED the money to get reelected, and their goal is to entrench themselves into a long, long term during which they can enrich themselves far beyond the wealth they had on entering Congress.
They scheme and jockey for committee assignments that directly serve their special interest contributors’ desires. The best way to isolate a Congressman is to take away their committee/panel assignments.