Disinfranchising Democrats

[wabeewoman]

It occured to me that if your congressperson is a democrat, you are being disinfranchised by the repugs, AGAIN. They have made it plain in leaving the dems out of the environmental bill, canceling the Iraq inquiry, and in their attempt to force judges through, they have no respect for the people who are represented by democrats. I am working on another letter to the editor (I've had 3 published-2 against the war, l defending Dean) about that fact. Any idea how I can find how many Americans that represents? Also I wonder if the 30 hours spent trying to push through 4 judges exceeded either the time spent debating the Iraqi war resolution or the patriot act. I thought that might be good info for my letter. Any ideas where to find this info?? I tried googling for it. I did come across this site which I need to explore further but it looks quite good : http://www.lib.umich.edu/govdocs/iraqwar.html

[Kenneth ken]

1. it's only fair

that people in Democratic districts be disenfranchised. My so-called rep is a Repugnant, and I'm disenfranchsed - he doesn't pay any attention to me, just his party leadership and their corporate owners.

How many Americans do Dem Congress people represent? The number of Congressioal Reps is a constant 435; redeistricting occurs after each census based on census results. That's why some states gain or lose seats. I think the 2000 census said about 297 million citizens, so 297m divided by 435 = 682,758 people per Rep. Multiply that by the 205 Dem Reps = 139,965,390 people represented by Dem Reps total. That isn't exact, but close.

I did a google on 'USA PATRIOT Act debates' and got this link:

<http://www.library.umass.edu/subject/patriotact/> it seems that those debates at least, went on more than 30 hours.

[The Backlash Cometh]

2. I stopped writing to my Repub representative a long time ago.

"If you don't hear that phone ring'n, you know it's me."

When he first stepped into office, he actually answered his own mail and I swear I was one election away from voting Republican. He seemed genuinely concerned about attempting to understand my point of view. But then the Clinton witch hunts began and I instinctively knew that what the Republicans were doing was bad for the country. You don't go tearing down a president on a twenty year old real estate deal. Also, conventional wisdom in this country before Republicans began attacking Clinton is that you wait until AFTER a presidential term before filing a civil lawsuit. They put their politics before the interest of all Americans and we have suffered ever since.

That the Republicans were working in a concerted manner became apparent because the tone and conviction in my rep's letters became more "on page" with other Republicans. Soon, his handwritten responses became form letters. I know why he shut himself off. In most elections, I don't even get to vote because there are no Democratic contenders. (But there was one Libertarian contender once. I shocked my husband when I gave him a drive-by flip of the finger. Heck, I shocked myself.)

But, anyway, I'm so alienated from my representative and the constituents in this county that I look to national elections to be represented.