Imagine if you could just walk over to your representative’s house or office and chat with him or her. Imagine if you could run for congress simply by walking around your neighborhood. This is how it used to be. Most of the issues in our country right now are not a problem with the size of our government, or bad regulation, or bad government workers, they are a problem of representation — that we are not represented in our own government.
When our democracy was founded, the ratio of citizens to representatives in the House of Representatives was 30,000:1. We want to return to that ratio.
WHY?
Our system of the bicameral legislature is designed to let the population have its voice (the House) and the more entrenched, powerful minorities have theirs (the Senate.) It was not designed to have a straight majority rule, but a more tempered form of representation. We think that was a smart idea — mob rule can be pretty frightening if you are not part of the mob! The House was supposed to be the place where the people could exercise their power, and that has been taken from us by the arbitrary limiting of the size of the House of Representatives to 435 members. Why? Control — it is easier to bribe and control 435 people than 12,000 people.
The House now has the ratio that the Senate use to have. That is why your representatives don’t work for you. They work for the people with money and access.
WHAT DO WE WANT?
We want two simple rules:
- The ratio of citizens to representatives in the House will be set at 30,000 to One.
- These districts will be based on a neutral geographic assessment every census —think zip codes.