{"id":8922,"date":"2015-04-13T19:18:31","date_gmt":"2015-04-13T19:18:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=8922"},"modified":"2015-04-13T19:18:31","modified_gmt":"2015-04-13T19:18:31","slug":"who-works-for-whom","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=8922","title":{"rendered":"Who works for whom?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n

I need help with this one.<\/p>\n

State Rep. Molly White, a Republican from Belton, Texas, has refused to meet with constituents who want to complain to her about some legislation she’s proposing.<\/p>\n

Why? She says it’s a waste of her time and she won’t talk to — that’s correct — her constituents.<\/em><\/p>\n

The issue is gay rights. Rep. White calls herself a Christian who follows God’s word. The legislation she’s backing would allow businesses to deny service to Texans on religious grounds. She also wants to exempt the state’s ban on same-sex marriage from court rulings.<\/p>\n

http:\/\/www.rawstory.com\/rs\/2015\/04\/texas-lawmaker-refuses-to-meet-with-constituents-who-dont-share-her-views-staff-says-it-is-a-waste-of-time\/<\/p>\n

\u201cMarriage is a Holy union of one man and one woman created and ordained by God. There is no other definition. As a Christian, I am guided by God\u2019s Word,\u201d\u00a0White explained in a statement.<\/p>\n

Some folks in her Texas House district disagree with that and want to talk to her about it.<\/p>\n

White will have none of it.<\/p>\n

Hmmm.<\/p>\n

OK, I now will try to explain briefly why this is wrong.<\/p>\n

In a representative democracy such as ours, the people who hold public office work at the pleasure of the people they represent. They don’t work only for those who vote for them, they answer to all the people in a governing subdivision, in this case a Texas House of Representatives district. Therefore, if someone wants to gripe at a lawmaker, they are entitled to do so.<\/p>\n

And the lawmaker, it seems to me, is obligated to give them a fair hearing. They can argue face to face. They call each other names if they wish. The lawmaker, though, doesn’t have the liberty of stiff-arming a constituency group merely because they disagree with his or her point of view.<\/p>\n

As the Rawstory reported: “Janet Adamski, a political science professor at the University of Mary Hardin-Baylor, noted that lawmakers are not required to meet with their constituents, but refusing to talk to a constituent because of their views runs contrary to the purpose of being of representative.”<\/p>\n

Put another way: Rep. White works for them, not the other way around.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n\n

Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I need help with this one. State Rep. Molly White, a Republican from Belton, Texas, has refused to meet with constituents who want to complain to her about some legislation she’s proposing. Why? She says it’s a waste of her time and she won’t talk to — that’s correct — her constituents. The issue is … Continue reading Who works for whom?<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[2774,3881,3895,4088,4642,4653],"class_list":["post-8922","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-state-news","tag-lgbt-issues","tag-religious-beliefs","tag-rep-molly-white","tag-same-sex-marriage","tag-texas-house-of-representatives","tag-texas-legislature"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8922","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8922"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8922\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8922"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8922"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8922"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}