The Unbalanced Branch

        Imagine a nation that suppress the voices of certain demographics of their population by not giving them the proper representation in a specific body of government. It’s not too hard to imagine, given that this predicament can be identified across the globe, but their is one nation I’m talking about specifically. No, it’s not the United Kingdom, where Scotland is debating independence from Great Britain for poor-representation. It’s the United States, where the only group adequately represented are wealthy, protestant, older, white men. 

While statistics show we are progressively being more representative than previous years, we still have a long way to go. Women, whom represent over half of the United States population, only represent 18.8% of Congress membership. And there are similarly startling statistics for Black/African-Americans, Asians, Hispanics, Native Americans, and those are just statistics based on ethnicity, this misrepresentation is also relevant for income bracket, age, and religious beliefs.

So, why is Congress so unbalanced? To start, it’s incredibly difficult enough to unseat incumbents from Congress; the chances of a minority candidate defeating an incumbent is even more abysmal. Congress could pass legislation that redesigns electoral process to increase the chances of fair and more competitive elections, but they don’t even discuss these options. And it’s distant in their minds for a quite obvious reason. 

The Legislative branch, that takes advantage of White and male privilege, would never give up their own power for the means of “equality”. Can we really trust the representatives we elect to gauge their own power? Not really, and that’s the most startling factor in this issue. There isn’t a majority of our own Legislative body that believes this is a relevant issue; minorities are undermined and ignored. 

The only way we can truthfully make any progress in providing a fair representation is by raising awareness of the issue and by objectively rejecting nay-sayers that claim the issue is irrelevant. As with many social issues throughout history; the voice of the people must overwhelm that of the government.

United States Census Bureau. “Annual Estimates of the Resident Population by Sex, Race, and Hispanic Origin for the United States, States and Counties: April 1, 2010 to July 1, 2013” June, 2014. Accessed September 18, 2014.

United States Senate. “Membership of the 113th Congress: A Profile” August 26, 2014. Accessed September 18, 2014.