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The Pros And Cons Of Congressional Candidates

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Despite the theory that Congress is a government “Of the People, By the People, For the People,” the legislative body features only a select few individuals, most of whom reign from upper levels of society. The Constitution prescribes limited barriers to becoming a Congressional representative based on age, citizenship, and residency. Because the Senate is unofficially the upper house of the two coequal houses of Congress, Constitutional restrictions for Senate candidates are higher than those of House candidates.
Where House candidates must only be 25 years of age and have been a United States citizen for seven years, Senate candidates must be 30 years old and have been citizens for nine years. Candidates for both houses must reside in the state which they seek to represent. If all of these criteria are met, a candidate is legally …show more content…

Because these appeals often connect directly with the electorate, they can be an effective way to increase name recognition and spread policy messages to inattentive voters who feel like they have been forgotten by their representatives. Unfortunately, because amateur candidates do not have the strategic resources to support and defend their populist agenda, professional politicians are often able to use their political experience to regain the confidence and support of voters.
In Congressional elections throughout the 1800s and early 1900s, party organizations played an integral role in the selection of professional candidates for office. These organizations would search across the country for individuals who they felt had the skills necessary to win elections, and sponsored those candidates under their party name. Following the partisan realignment of the 1960s, along with the rapid expansion of mass media markets, parties lost much of their control over the selection of political

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