The founders of the United States were not fond of a direct democracy:

"A pure democracy, by which I mean a society consisting of a small number of citizens, who assemble and administer the government in person, can admit to no cure for the mischiefs of faction...there is nothing to check the inducements to sacrifice the weaker party or an obnoxious individual. Hence it is that such democracies...have ever been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property; and have in general been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths." - James Madison, The Federalist Papers, No. 10, 1787

     But one of the problems of representative government is the "distance" between the citizen and the decisions made. In direct democracy the distance is not far enough, people are more motivated by their own self interest than the public good. They are likely to request bills that benefit them in some way. But with a representative government, especially one where the ratio of citizens to representative is astounding, the citizen is "too far away" from government, unable to affect policy in any significant fashion.

Looking at the US legislature, it is possible to see some of the flaws of a representative form of government.

Flaw number 1: The body which is supposed to represent the people, does not look anything like the people.

     The US is more than 50% female, but only 10% of the representatives are female. African Americans make up 12% of the population but only 7.5% of the representatives. Latinos are 9% of the population, but 4% of Congress. Congresspeople are mostly lawyers and business leaders (making up around 65% of Congress). Their income levels puts them firmly in the "upper class" economically, as was noted on other pages, at least a third of the senators are millionaires. The average age of a Congressperson is 53 years old. (See Davidson, Roger H. and Walter J. Oleszek. Congress and Its Members. 1994. pp 122-127.) And since between 5-10% of the US population is homophilial and only 3 Congresspeople are homophilial, that means 5-10% of the population is being represented by around half a percent of Congress.
     Succinctly, Congress is made up mostly of rich-old-straight-white men though they make up only a small percentage of the nation they represent. Welcome to the American version of apartheid.
     The defense of the status quo goes like this: One does not need to be African-American to represent the interests of their community, and one does not need to be female to represent the interests of females. I disagree with this argument. On one hand, most public policy affects everyone the same regardless of their status: defense spending, environmental regulations, improvements to infrastructure, etc. However some public policy clearly affects certain groups much more than others, and it is on these issues where the groups need to be properly represented in the Congress.
     For instance, public policy on abortion clearly affects the female population much more than it does the male population, and yet females are only 10% of those involved in making the policy. And health care reform strongly affects the elderly, the youth (because virtually none of the young adults have coverage of any kind), and the poor. Though the elderly may be represented, the youth and the poor are not. The representatives already have their own coverage two or three times over, and so do not understand how it is to have a health problem and be unable to do anything about it.

Flaw number 2: The individual is powerless to affect public policy.

     Once the vote is cast, the representative is on his own to vote however he wishes. If the individual writes their representative, they get a form letter in return from one of the representative's staff. And though their letter may be added to the letters of others to show that they are part of the X who wrote in reference to this issue, the representative may or may not take this into consideration when voting.
     Though the individual may join a pressure group to try to get the representative's attention, how much control does the individual have over the interest group? And what are the constitutional limitations placed upon interest groups? Since they fall outside of government, there are few limitations placed upon the actions of interest groups, they may disregard the rights of others whenever they please. You doubt me? What about the Klan's treatment of minorities, or the religious right groups' treatment of homophilial people? Interest groups are not a substitute for representation.
     The representatives need to be held accountable for their actions more than just once every 2-4 years. If the individual vehemently opposes the stands being taken by his representative, he needs to have the power to "take his portion of representation" away from that representative.

Flaw number 3: The individual is lost in the crowd.

     "The Framers contemplated House districts of no more than 30,000 people..." (Davidson, Roger H. and Walter J. Oleszek, Congress and Its Members, 1994, p 27).
     Today the ratio of citizen to representative is 1:570,352 (p 26). How in the world is the individual supposed to make his voice heard above the voices of 570,351 other people? Yet, enlarging Congress to accommodate more representatives is basically out of the question. Under our current political system, the Congress is already too large to be operated in an efficient yet democratic manner.
     There IS a way to greatly enlarge the number of representatives to bring this ratio down to a reasonable proportion, but it would require the use of technology and changing the rules of the game. But I don't want to get ahead of myself...

Flaw number 4: The Individual is overshadowed by the Group.

     At it's inception, the US Congress was set up to represent groups and abstract concepts over representing the people. I'm talking about the Senate. The only way to get the Constitution out of the convention to be ratified was to compromise and create the Senate. But what does the Senate represent? The Senate represents the states...an abstract concept.
     You may think, no, my senator represents me and everyone else in my state. But that is not how the Senate is set up. If the Senate were meant to represent all of the individuals in the state, they would be equally apportioned like in the House. If you live in Alaska, "your voice" is heard much, much louder in the Senate than if you live in California since both states have two senators.
     My question is, why? Why do we set up institutions to represent something other than the people? Why should someone in a sparsely-populated area of the country have a greater voice in policy-making than I do? Is that equal representation? Who cares where the state lines were drawn a hundred years ago, should these arbitrary dividing lines determine who has more political power?
     The Congress should represent the sum of all individuals, not abstract constructs. If the goal of a republic is equal representation, then the Senate (as its counterpart in England, the House of Lords) should be abolished.
     The House, though better apportioned to give equal representation, still has the problem of representing groups over individuals. How is it that a person who resides in Virginia has full access to the representatives of other states? Why is his voice given equal ranking with the voices of the representative's TRUE constituency? Because that person from Virginia is the spokesperson for an interest group. So? Well, a couple of people from his district are members of this interest group. So? Is the spokesperson from the Congressperson's district? If not, the spokesperson has no business lobbying my representative. The focus of interest groups should be to make their cases for change to the people, and let the individuals from that Congressperson's district contact their representative.
     Just to give you an idea of the extent of the problem of interest groups, let me give you a few numbers. In 1988 there were 20,643 national interest groups, with several thousand who willingly registered with Congress as a lobbying organization. When we include state and local level groups, the number jumps from 20 to 200 thousand groups, with the number directly involved in lobbying being unmeasurable. (See Hrebenar, Ronald J. and Ruth K. Scott. Interest Group Politics in America. 2nd ed. 1990. pp 10-13.)
     The influence of interest groups upon the House of Representatives should be eliminated and replaced with input from constituents directly.

3/22/97