America’s Getting More Diverse, So Why Isn’t Congress?

GOOD shows that our current lawmakers aren't representative of demographic changes.

By Jamilah King Apr 18, 2011

We spent a good portion of last week at Colorlines.com digging through the role of government. First, Kai Wright waited for President Obama to articulate why our government is important in the first place, and then framed that within the need to maintain what’s left of President Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society social reforms. The folks over at GOOD point out that we need to take a closer at the lawmakers who are making those decisions:

America is getting more and more diverse — for instance, our Hispanic population grew by 43 percent in the past decade alone — but you’d never be able to tell it by looking at our Congress. Here’s what the House and Senate look like today, alongside what they would look like if they were demographically representative of our nation. Spoiler alert: There’s not a lot of color on the Hill.

(click for full image)