Discussion of Whether The Congress Really Represents The Us Population

It is expected that the America we know today will change. Changeability is the racial and ethnical makeup of the people in America. A century ago, many immigrants from Eastern and Southern Europe help with creating our cultural and constitutionalized diversity. Now with new immigrants from Asia and Latin America it adds and creates an even larger measurement of cultural and constitutionalized diversity. Furthermore, the situations with racial and ethnic groups are becoming unnoticeable by the increase in intermarriage and the growing number of mixed ancestries. Our Congress is known to be one of the most racially and ethnically diverse groups ever. Women within the congress are at an all-time high, fewer members have military experience compared to the past and most of the members of Congress possess degrees. Even though immigrants of Congress remain below historical highs, the share of immigrants in Congress has increased and over time Congress also has become more religiously diverse.

When changes occur, we can get a better picture or idea of our American people. The US population compared to US congress has many different and similar demographics that help with that visualization. For instance, within Congress, women are being elected at an increasing rate, yet men are still at an high compared to the US and in order for Congress to truly image the US population, they would need to accept transgender. The ethnicity between the US population and Congress is mostly white but diversity has been shown to be on the rise. Black and Hispanic congresswoman are being elected and the first Native American congresswomen were able to make Native American congressional proportional to the US population. It is said that, the United States remains home to more Christians than any other country in the world, and a large majority of Americans – roughly seven-in-ten – continue to identify with some branch of the Christian faith”. US Congress remains massively Christian, as do the majority of the US population. Other religious representation more or less represents the rest of the US and the most diminished group were the non-religious groups such as agnostic or atheist.

The present Congress is more established and more experienced than it was 50 years back. So, would this mean that Congress does not represent US population? I would say yes because most members of Congress are white males and the needs and interest of women and minorities are not being represented. Another reason is that most of the members of congress are stuck in their old ways and this can cause major problems for the younger generations to come. It is said that the extremism of majorities may cause distrust of people on the legislation which can destabilize the congress. This means that the trust that the US population have in Congress will soon be gone if the Congress is not able to make the changes to match the makeup of the new US population. However, on the Congress side of things the way people are voting also contributes to the problem. The US population must be willing to change their attitudes, work to become more active in politics and create changes in political campaigning and this may help Congress represent everyone.