Constituency Work
Elected representatives may spend much of the time serving the needs or demands of constituents, meaning either voters or residents of their district. This is more common in assemblies with many single-member or small districts than those with fewer, larger districts. In a looser sense, corporations and other such organizations can be referred to as constituents, if they have a significant presence in an area.
Many assemblies allow free postage (through franking privilege or prepaid envelopes) from a representative to a constituent, and often free telecommunications. Caseworkers may be employed by representatives to assist constituents with problems. Members of the U.S. Congress (both Representatives and Senators) working in Washington, D.C. have a governmentally-staffed district office to aid in "constituent services". Many state legislatures have followed suit. Likewise, British MPs use their Parliamentary staffing allowance to appoint staff for "constituency casework". Client politics and pork barrel politics are associated with constituency work.
Read more about this topic: Electoral District
Famous quotes containing the words constituency and/or work:
“My constituency is the desperate, the damned, the disinherited, the disrespected and the despised.”
—Jesse Jackson (b. 1941)
“... Washington was not only an important capital. It was a city of fear. Below that glittering and delightful surface there is another story, that of underpaid Government clerks, men and women holding desperately to work that some political pull may at any moment take from them. A city of men in office and clutching that office, and a city of struggle which the country never suspects.”
—Mary Roberts Rinehart (1876–1958)