A Novel Approach To Representation. Wish we had more of it!

[WillD]

Saw this this AM.

"I would tell you as you talk about Jim Messina, the president lost North Dakota by almost 22 percentage points and I was still elected the United States senator and I was elected because I promised people I was going to be their voice not the voice for a political party, not the voice for a president who happens to be in the same political party that I am but I am the voice for the people of North Dakota," Heitkamp says. "I'll make my decisions based on what I believe is in the best interest of the people of North Dakota, the people of this country. And if in six years people don't agree that I made the right choices, I'll find something else to do." -Sen. Heidi Heitkamp, D-N.D-

[JASmith]

One of our local congresswomen tried that approach. The first thing she new was that her district boundaries were re-drawn so that some of the important parts of her constituency went to some other congressman. There were other political punishments too. She learned her lesson and became a good parrot.

Your signature line foretells the Senator's fate. History suggests that the party leadership will exercise its control over who gets to serve on what committee, among other things. A maverick Senator will likely get sidelined and be ineffective.

The choice becomes "Be ineffective or be a rubber stamp."

[WillD]

JASmith you're probably right. I'm an apocaloptimist; I believe it's all going to s... but we'll be OK.
One can only hope that NoDak spirit will prevail.

Cheers, Will

[Taylormade]

Atleast he has the pride and integrity to represent the people who elected him. We need more like him.

[LRRPF52]

In Utah, we just got rid of the politically-carved gerrymandered districts and basically drew a straight grid over the State. High population density areas were clumped together so that the carved-out districts from before disappeared.