Clean up Congress

Once a congressman gets elected, you know what? He or she never gets unelected until he dies or retires. Congressmen have a reelection rate of about 97%. Once a congressman gets in office, his main job becomes raising money for his next election. The job of representing constituents comes second. Further, the best way to raise money is do it in big chunks. Get some lobbyist or corporation to contribute $100,000 to your reelection campaign. So who does the congressman represent?

The other great way to get reelected is to gerrymander your district so that an opponent of another party can never get enough votes to displace you. This is accomplished by state legislatures, who draw the boundaries of congressional districts to include as many voters of your party as you need to win, and then include a token sample of the opposing party. This is what Tom Delay got the Texas Legislature to do recently; in this case some new congressmen were elected but they were all Republicans.

Congress is working on a law to change this system. They want to try to take some of the politics out of it. Maybe they should consider a representative system: If the Republicans get 40% of the vote and Democrats get 40% and Independents get 20%, split up the congressional delegation in the same proportion.

http://www.thelittlegreenie.com
http://www.trafford.com/04-2119