Republicanism is just limited and representative rather than direct democracy. The “republic not a democracy” claim is incoherent. 1/

Constituent services is not a legislative role. It’s a corrupt and corrupting form of incumbency bias (which doesn’t mean i won’t use it, we live in this world). That’s not to say there shouldn’t be roles in government for citizen advocacy. 2/

But the quality of that service shouldn’t depend on who your Rep is, and what their tenure has been, and how much good PR they can get from helping you. 3/

Constituent services “represents” a tiny, tiny fraction of individuals, but a good reputation their can be used to overcome deficiencies in the legislative role, representing the interests and values of the full body of constituents. 4/

A good representation in constituent services that you can play up and tout buys legislators the freedom to cater to their donors, rather than serve their constituents. 5/

The dual role of legislator and ombudsman, again, introduces tradeoffs that mean citizens don’t get the best legislators, in terms of vigorously representing their values and interests. And legislator is far, far more important a role than ombudsman. /fin