What is the point of the “whip” in congress? What do they do and why are they called a whip?
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A whip is an official of a political party whose task is to ensure party discipline in a legislature. This means ensuring that members of the party vote according to the party platform, rather than according to their own individual ideology or the will of their donors or constituents. Whips are the party’s “enforcers”.
It is a relic from parliamentary systems where the party is a larger part of the Government officially. In such a system a district votes for their representative seat to be filled by X party rather than Y individual who happens to be a member of X party. As such it is a necessary part of that form of democracy that Y individual vote the way the party wants because that is their job in holding that seat for the term they have been elected. The Whip’s job is to hold Party Members accountable for voting the way the Party wants them to vote, and if the member does not then they have various mechanism to punish them if they do not vote party line (including initiating their ejection from the party which can remove them from their seat in parliament).
In the US where we vote for the individual rather than party, and the representative is elected (at least theoretically) because we want their personals and ideology to represent their district the Whip has less power. But they still serve the function of making the party line known to members and trying to keep them in line by giving out punishments and such. Now unlike Parliamentary systems being ejected from your party does not remove you from your seat in government, it just means you cannot run on the party ticket during the next election and either have to run with a different party’s support or run as an independent.
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