My solution!

Why stop telling your representative what to do after you have voted for them? I have devised a Factor of 10 to establish how the people of district seventy seven can be sure that their representative is doing the will of the people. It is also a way to make sure that communication can continue up and down the chain of power and could have the added benefit of a sense of community again. It is a very simple idea that could revolutionize how we select our representative from now on. I would hope that it would also prove successful enough to other districts to implement the same plan.

The Plan!

Each voter in the district would be divided up by location into groups of ten so that all the voters would theoretically come from the same block or the next block over. (No one would be farther then walking distance at this point unless of course they chose to live very far from others.) You would each receive a number that would go with your voter registration for one year.

The number would pool you with ten of your neighbors. To start an example lets say you were number 9876. The least significant digit (in this case the 6) would make you the sixth person in your pool of ten. It would also make you in the seventh group of your pool of one hundred. In the eighth group of your pool of one thousand and in the ninth group of the pool of ten thousand.

Each group of ten’s first order of business would be to then be to meet, get to know each other and elect leadership. No one would be forced to participate, but if you want to truly have a voice in Government this would be your outlet. You could attend meetings or not as you saw fit. The leader from your group of 10 would then "Represent" you at the council of one hundred (Being the ten people (one from each group of ten) that are chosen to represent the one hundred people that live for the most part closest to you). Each council of one hundred (ten people representing one hundred each) would then do the same (elect one to the council of one thousand). The councils of one thousand (ten people representing one thousand each) would then do likewise (elect one to the council of ten-thousand) and district seventy seven's council of ten-thousand (ten people representing ten-thousand each) would be born.

Now what does all this mean? Well first off it means two things that are important. You would have a choice in who represents your will to the person in power not whatever party happens to be in power at that point. Second at each level the voice will be amplified. If someone calls their State Congressmen and asks to speak with them for the most part their voice will be lost, but if the person that “Represents” one thousand people calls the State Congressmen I assure you that phone will be picked up.

So how does a Council work?

Well that is simple. Each Council (Tens, Hundreds, Thousands, Ten’s of Thousands) sets up its own rules. The rules of any governing Council will be established by that Council with one and only one rule of Governance. Each Council must meet at least once a month publicly. Yes this would mean the higher you go in the structure the more meetings you would have in a given month. IE: someone on the council of Ten Thousand would need to go to four meetings a month. For this sacrifice they will have the ear of the State Congressman once a month in a meeting with only nine other people. The important factor here is that a member of the council of Ten Thousand would need to meet with the original ten people that started them up the line each month as well to hear there grievances and take them up the line. This is how Government was always meant to work -- A truly representative republic.

We need to take a step toward taking our Government back from special interests and political parties. We need to take a step toward getting to know the people in our community and not only what they think, but why they think it. We need to have debates on the issues big and small and come to a resolution that will meet the needs of the people not the special interests that line the pockets of our politicians. We need Transparency and Accountability from our government. We need a system that will grow and cultivate new leadership slowly over time, not thrust new people upon us every two years that we have never heard of that are presented only to serve the needs of a party.

It will start with ten people talking about problems once a month at a local level. Problems can be solved, not by people telling us how they are going to solve them for us, but by local families meeting with other local families to determine for themselves what is best for them.