It’s trivia night… do you know the names of your 3 federal legislative representatives?
It’s true that U.S. citizens are “under-voting” (only casting a vote for the president while leaving votes for the legislative candidates blank). Is this because they don’t understand how our system works? They don’t understand who works for them? Do they not understand the salaries they are paying with their income tax dollars?
Maybe they don’t have any awareness about a system of checks and balances?
If you are a U.S. citizen and you don’t know who is working for you in the Legislative Branch, then you are contributing to the systemic rise of unchecked power and influence from the Executive Branch of our government.
As you (should) know, you are represented by a system of checks and balances.
Federally speaking, you are represented by three branches of government (Legislative, Executive and Judicial).
While everyone knows that you are represented by the Commander in Chief of the Executive branch, it’s equally important to know that you are also represented by three other, key individuals that you elect to the U.S. Legislative branch.
- Two U.S. Senators
- One U.S. Representative
You share your U.S. Senators with every other citizen in your state. There are two U.S. Senators who jointly represent each U.S. state. You elect your U.S. Senators to represent your interests in the Legislative Branch’s U.S. Senate.
You share your U.S. Representative with every other citizen in your assigned district. The number of U.S. Representatives for each state varies depending on the population of the state. You elect your U.S. Representatives to represent your interests in the Legislative Branch’s House of Representatives.
In an ideal world, in addition to knowing the name of the U.S. representative in the Executive Branch (our president), we would also know the names of our three respective representatives in the Legislative Branch.
If you’re going to promote any sort of societal change, you need to let it be known what you expect to change.
Once you know what you want to change, what is today’s best (most civil) way of creating a path to your desired change?
It is by creating legislative law that forges a way for your vision.
With a salary from your federal income tax, who is employed to represent your vision and create legislative law on your behalf?
It is your U.S. Representatives.
Who are your U.S. Representatives?
Well… first you have to find them.
Congress makes it easy to identify the three elected officials that currently represent you and the citizens in your state and district, by simply entering your zip code in this representative-finder:
https://www.congress.gov/members/find-your-member
Find your representatives and contact them.
Introduce yourself by reminding them that you know who they are. That you see them. And that you vote according to your interests, not according to the interests of the Executive Branch of government, and that you are watching what laws they create and how they vote.
The entire point of their existence is to represent you. Do they know what you want?
Trivia’s about to begin… get to know your federal legislative representatives!