Making our Representatives Representative

I don’t usually read Parade, because it’s so right wing. But today’s Intelligence Report (which won’t be available online until Wednesday) had this to say:

The Daughter Factor

How a male in the House of Representatives votes on bills concerning women’s safety and reproductive rights may depend on how many daughters he has. Ebonya Washington, a Yale economist, found that legislators who have just girls—or more girls than boys—take more liberal positions on issues such as abortion and access to birth control. This held for Republicans as well as Democrats.

I found the original study posted on Stanford University’s website (it’s a pdf).

Reading this information gave me an idea. We can make sure that people representing us really understand what we’re facing by changing the requirements for office. Here’s my list:

Family requirements to run for office:

At least as many daughters as sons
A family member who’s gay
An interracial marriage within two degrees of kinship

Pay and benefits:

A specified multiple of minimum wage as their pay
Medical coverage that’s exactly like Medicare
No retirement pay except Social Security

What are your ideas?

Carolyn Kay
MakeThemAccountable.com

Every election cycle, a certain number of citizens are selected by a random lottery to run for office. Many won't want to, many more will not qualify, and even more will fail during the publicly-funded campaign. If you do get elected, your compensation is exactly what you were making before. Everything necessary to preforming your duties--nice suits, living quarters in DC, travel, etc--would be provided as necessary. You would use military health care facilities. And when your term is up, you go back to your world just as you left it only with the honor of having actually SERVED your country.

edit: spelling

The people we want are the people who don't want to serve. The ones who want to are often so ego-driven that we should put them on ice floes, rather than put them in office.

Soon there won't be any more ice floes, though. Must be part of the conspiracy.

Carolyn Kay
MakeThemAccountable.com