Interesting illustration of the makeup of congress compared to the US population.

[harmonicon]

I'm sorry if this has been posted already, but I just came across it on another site. I think the image is too large to bother directly linking to here, but I suggest going and having a look:

http://awesome.good.is/transparency/web/1104/congress/flat.html

One thing - and of course this is speculative - that I wonder about is the category of political affiliation. It seems to me that the majority of Americans self-identify as democrat or republican simply because those seem to be the only choices they have. If congress were to actually reflect the positions of the population, I think we'd see even fewer democrats and republicans on that chart.

[OffWithTheirHeads]

1. I went from green to dem during the elections to independent

After the dems had no spine. I will never register dem again. They had their chance.

[harmonicon]

2. I've never been registered with any party.

That's one thing I like about Michigan: anyone can vote in any primary, but only one per election cycle. I really don't understand being registered with a party if you aren't actively involved in internal party politics.

[former9thward]

3. In Arizona 62,000 people have registered to vote since the 2010 elections.

Of those 4,000 have registered as a Democrat, 10,000 as a Republican and 48,000 as a Independent. People are avoiding the two major parties as much as they can.

[harmonicon]

4. Is that really avoidance?

I would guess that I vote for Democrats about 98% of the time (I remember one type of state education thing where I voted for a dem and a green, and I voted for a libertarian for sheriff once), but I still see no need to register as being affiliated with the Democratic Party.

[former9thward]

6. I don't know if avoidance is the right word.

But it is clear that people are very unhappy with both parties and don't want to be identified with them any more.

[crickets]

5. +1 for Talking Heads reference

as well as the startling (but sadly not so surprising) way this shows our representatives don't really reflect their constituents' diversity as much as they should.