Well, actually, in some sense I have because I have always resided in districts that have elected members to Congress. But why then do I feel less represented than a resident of the District of Columbia?
The answer is it's because since I have been old enough to pay attention to who represents me in Congress, fortune, family and redistricting have conspired to to keep me almost always in a district represented by a Republican whom I voted against and would always vote against, even if it meant voting for a yellow dog. So why speak up now?
It has happened again. Fortune frowns anew in the form of Illinois redistricting, which moved my home from the district of a beatable Freshman Republican to the district of a probably unbeatable Freshman Republican who is more disgusting and votes 96% with Boehner. Dammit.
This ill fortune goes way back. When I left home for college, I found myself in the district of Page Belcher (great name, right?) the only Republican member of Congress from a more or less Southern state that back then still elected mostly Democrats. While I was away at school and later after Viet Nam forced me into the Navy, my home district was represented by the very good and decent and smart Jim Symington, Democrat, son of former Missouri Senator Stuart Symington, a political fixture of my youth. Jim was succeeded by Robert A. Young, another estimable Democrat who lasted until the Reagan Revolution crested, losing a close election after his district lost urban areas and gained suburban areas in redistricting following Missouri's loss of a Congressional district. But I didn't live there anymore so those guys don't count.
At this point, we find the first exception to the fact basis for this tale, that I can't seem to get myself represented by a Democrat. For a couple of cycles while I was in law school and early in my practice, I resided in the district of Jim Jones, Democrat. But Jones was such a foooking Blue Dog that I closed my eyes and held my nose every time I voted for him and I voted against him in primaries every chance I got. So I'm not counting him as having represented me, despite his caucus affiliation.
The same is true for Martin Frost, to whom I shall return after mentioning the years I spent under the yoke of the likes of Mickey Edwards, Smokey Joe Barton, Mark Kirk and the Bedbug Man, Bob Dold. A couple of this crowd were slightly less disgusting, from a certain point of view, I suppose, but I don't share that point of view and uniformly loathed each of them in turn to this day.
The most hopeful moment I ever had was in 2003 when I temporarily found myself represented by Martin Frost. Tom Delay's redistricting scheme pitted Frost against Pete Sessions the next cycle and led to the onset of Frost's lobbying and consulting career.
I practice courtroom law and was asked by a group of local citizens, working together under the aegis of Moveon.org, to speak for them, against an invasion resolution for Iraq at a meeting with Martin Frost in a district office. We actually thought before hand that he might be willing to engage with us in a genuine discussion of the very serious problems we foresaw, all of which came to pass. Boy, were we wrong!
After, it was evident that there was no way to stop the destruction to come and so it happened. But going in we were hopeful. For a moment.
Now comes Illinois redistricting. I have written enough about IL-10 that it is one of my top tags. I was enthusiastic about the emergence of opposition to the freshman incumbent, Robert Dold, the Bedbug Man (you can't make this up). But now, just because live near large numbers of rich assholes, I find myself shifted to just the other side of a line and in the IL-14, represented by freshman and much more secure Congressman Randy Hultgren.
Google Hultgren and you will get a quarter million hits in .10 seconds. Google opponent Hultgren and you get 9 hits, none about anyone considering doing that. Great. Thanks. Meanwhile, back in the good old 14th, Democrats are lining up against Bedbug Bob. This is it, probably until I retire. Sigh.