The Electoral Connection

The Electoral Connection 

Putting Mayhew's Theory To Work

David Mayhew's whole argument is that members of congress always have re-election in the back of their mind. As he states, it is the proximate goal. Mario Diaz Balart is a career politician. As mentioned in the previous blogs, he has been working around local government ever since he graduated University of Southern Florida and has been in the U.S House of Representatives since 2002. He has not shown any intention of running for a higher office as he is one of the more senior figures in the House and seems quite comfortable there.

Advertising:
As mentioned earlier, Balart has been in office since 2002. Even though he is a hot shot in Washington D.C, he has not forgotten about his constituency back home in Southern Florida. Representative Balart is not one to crave media attention. Especially with today's media attention on the President, Representative Balart has been able to slide under it when it comes to reporting news in his constituency. His main means of advertising is through social media. He is very active on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Looking through his Facebook feed, he keeps his followers and constituents up to date on his Washington activities. The picture below was taken on February 26th, 2019. He is meeting with the Florida banking community about deregulation and the impact it would have on Florida's economy and posted it to Facebook. Promoting economic prosperity is a major focus of Representative Balart (house.gov). Due to a majority of the population in his constituency being Cuban, he posts each post in both English and Spanish. This is probably more for optics than anything. It allows him to be a bit more personal with the people who voted him into office.

Credit Claiming:
Balart focuses on improving areas around his constituency. Being on several committees has brought him influence in several areas. Being in Congress has led Balart getting several items on his agenda through. He secured $1.1 billion to speed up construction on the Everglades Agricultural Area Reservoir Project. Along with this, he was able to get funding approved by the federal government to improve transit initiatives such as the bus system around Miami International Airport, one the more busier airports in the nation. Balart was quick to take credit for these initiatives. One of the more influential things he has done for his constituency is securing money for the Herbert Hoover Dike. It has been an issue for many years and many elected officials have tried to take credit for it. In the end, Balart was one of two who were able to take credit for it. It turned out be a good photo op for Balart and he was able to take credit for a project in his home state. The common trend with Balart is that he is focused on taking on issues of national importance and those that affect his part of the state. With this focus, he is able to accomplish what he sets forward such as the examples mentioned before. 

Congressman Balart and Congressman Rooney 

Position Taking:
Representative Balart is a supporter of President Trump. Although he is a member of the GOP, he has a bigger focus on getting things done in Congress. According to an article in the Miami Herald, Representative Balart does not publicly criticize the President when they disagree on issues. This has allowed him to maintain his focus, which he states on his website is to passionately serve his constituents.  Not criticizing the President on issues he disagrees with has led him to work objectively on Latin America issues, which are important to his constituency. An example of this is the current Venezuela situation. A little fun fact, Balart's Congressional District includes a town, Doral. Doral has the highest percentage of Venezuelan-Americans in the entire country. The current Venezuelan crisis is one of the worst South America has seen. Even though the President is not a fan of immigration and Venezuelans, Balart has taken the bigger issue at hand. Darren Soto, a representative from Orlando and Balart introduced a bill, H.R. 549, on January 17th, 2019 that would allow Venezuelans living here from being deported back for atlas a year and a half. This is called Temporary Protected Status (WLRN, 2019). The fact that this bill is a bi-partisan effort shows that Balart is more focused on helping his constituency and issues of national importance rather than playing party lines. 

References
https://www.miamiherald.com/news/politics-government/article218955330.html
http://www.wlrn.org/post/diaz-balart-soto-introduce-bill-give-venezuelans-temporary-protected-status
https://mariodiazbalart.house.gov/media-center/press-releases/reps-soto-diaz-balart-introduce-bipartisan-venezuela-tps-act-of-2019
https://www.nbc-2.com/story/38893776/who-gets-credit-for-herbert-hoover-dike-repair-money