I don't know about their educational backgrounds, but I think the bigger question is "Do they study the legislation before voting for each item?" Having worked in a legislative environment, I know for a fact that most politicians don't actually read the bills, let alone study them.

These legislators thinks that they know everything already that they don't need to read the bills. Many of them are so arrogant that reading a bill would seem like they don't know anything about it wherein they really don't know about it.

Politicians just acquire this corruption trait. They don't need to study how to screw people up because they can acquire this trait from their mentors who are already corrupt politicians.

It is a fact that legislators don't read bills, the bills are hundreds of pages long first off and secondly they soley vote along party lines ninety nine percent of the time. As long as the bill was sponsored by a member of their party when it goes to committee it comes out on the other side.

How do you think earmarks and pork barrel money gets into bills?

Interesting! Like all of you, I too worked for a short time in the NYS Senate's majority leader's office back in the mid-1970's.

EVERY bill I saw was just pushed through according to a schedule which bore no relationship to the complexity of a piece of legislation or the number of bills to be voted on, or passed along, on any day. Nobody could have read these bills or had the opportunity to question the contents thereof.

So if the current legislative process is the same as it was 30+ years ago, and I assume all states are similar, why are we so screwed up today?

My answer is back then there really were two parties with different core values and ideologies that have been steadily selling themselves out to big money and corruption. They are now two faces of the same coin that has imprinted on it - "The United States of Wall Street".

Still to me it boils down to knowing your trade, its not like I am going to walk into my work and vote for something which I know is totally against the rules just for sheer profit. That would look stupid and maybe get me fired, for those as they just do not seem to care as they are not as easy to fire I guess.

So who reads those bills then? Are they written for the sake of formalities? We can save a lot of trees if those bills were not printed on paper.

Will there still be hope that the politics in the future will become "cleaner" and that the politicians will do their job properly?

What I personally know from my very limited experience is that the language in a bill is extremely important and the legal requirements of the language is what makes a simple bill run into many pages.

For example, if a bill passes it becomes law, and if that bill is to replace or modify existing law, then is has to be very precise in identifying what language in the existing law is affected; including sentences, phrases, words or even puncuation - we're talking a procedure here that has an immediate legal impact.

If a bill is to become totally new law, it has to be written with such precision and detail so that it can become "codied", or enforceable; in other words be reduced into regulations.

Problem is, most legislatures have lost the trust and support of their constituants and therefore most people don't want to hear about the process.

I would rather learn myself so I can know exactly what they are doing that we may not be aware of. I would think the same should apply for those who are to be "fighting for the little people".

All the more reason to have term limits across the board for all members of Congress. The advantages of incumbency currently outweighs the reason why these politicians keep getting re-elected, as opposed to their abilities, intelligence and accountability to their voters.