&gt; I humbly suggest that a congressional approval rating of 11% and a congressional re-election rate of 95% are not the sort of incompatible numbers that promote continued sanity.<p>There is actually a logical explanation for that.<p>The people in corn country want ethanol subsidies. The people in Hollywood want draconian copyright laws. The people in coal mining districts don&#x27;t want clean air laws.<p>So the Congressman from Iowa votes for draconian copyright laws in exchange for the Congresswoman from California voting for ethanol subsidies and every terrible thing which is bad for the whole country nevertheless comes to pass, causing the approval rate for Congress to fall below that of Vogon poetry and dirty latrines. Yet everyone is satisfied with their own member of Congress because they got that thing the district cared most about getting.<p>Fixing that is probably going to require some kind of structural change (like proportional representation in the House of Representatives).