Your Congressman Works for You

While the title of this post sounds like an obvious truism, it recently hit me that this is an empowering concept. First, I must admit something: until last month (when having brunch w/ my wife's cousins) I did not realize that I had "a Congressman"! For some reason (call it the Florida Keys public school education) I knew that there were 2 Senators from each state and a varying number of Congressmen based on population... but I guess it hadn't click that each Congressman represented a specific district. Call me slow, but I now feel empowered nonetheless.

Once I learned this simple construct of our political system, I did some quick math: 435 representatives to the house divided by 100mm households (or ~300mm people) means that each congressman represent roughly 230K households (690K people). I realize that I should probably drill down to the state level to get better numbers, but directionally I'm comfortable with this math (someone please correct me if I'm wrong here).

So my congressman represents 230K households. Assuming that most Americans are completely apathetic to state politics (I'll try to get back to you with some data here), let's say that the majority of Americans don't know who their congressman is (I didn't until last month). Of those who do know their representatives, let's assume that the majority do not contact their congressman (or senators) regarding their personal views. You start to get the feeling that if you got hundreds (or even scores) of people to email or write a congressman on a specific issue, you could have a pretty strong voice in influencing votes.

While I know that I'm simply highlighting to most of you how a democracy is supposed to work, I guess I'm spelling it out if for only my benefit. I guess my point here is that I'm starting to feel very empowered.

I leave you with this link: www.congress.org

From here, you can type your zipcode to see your two senators and your (personal : ) representative. You can also sign up to get your representative's votes sent to you in a weekly email. Feels like this is a pretty powerful resource to start to get politically involved in what is taking place around you. I certainly plan to, and I'll continue to post blogs on what I find...