Senate Finance Committee "Gang of Six" fun facts:

Inspired by a Salon article.

Who	State	Population
Max Baucus	Montana	967,440
Kent Conrad	North Dakota	641,481
Jeff Bingaman	New Mexico	1,984,356
Chuck Grassley	Iowa	3,002,555
Mike Enzi	Wyoming	532,668
Olympia Snowe	Maine	1,316,456

Those Senators represent 8,444,956 people out of a total of 304,059,724 for the nation. That's 2.7%. And they're all rural.

If each Senator represented a hypothetical state that contained 1/50th of the U.S. population (6,081,194.48) then collectively, the six would represent 12% of the nation.

That's not particularly inspiring (a larger "Gang" would be better), but it's a whole lot better than 2.7%. The Senate might just as well be a House of Lords, full of individuals with whatever quirks they happen to have. Some liberal, others conservative. But it's one thing for sure: not very representative of the population.


posted by Quiddity at 8/19/2009 06:53:00 AM