Ever doubt the intelligence of some members of Congress? Turns out you’re not alone.
A new study by Rasmussen Reports found that only five percent of likely voters think that members of Congress and their professional staffs are the “best and brightest” in the nation. Seventy-eight percent of voters disagreed, and 17 percent were undecided.
Recommended Stories
To some extent, it does make sense that so many Americans doubt that the nation’s “best and brightest” are serving in Washington. Among the members of the 113th Congress are a screenwriter, comedian (Sen. Al Franken, D-Minn.), a documentary film maker and a professional football player (Rep. Jon Runyan, R-N.J.). There are also 28 farmers, ranchers or cattle farm owners, two almond orchard owners, one vintner, one fisherman and one fruit orchard worker serving in the 113th Congress.
Not to say there aren’t some highly-educated people serving in Congress, either. There are currently 102 educators, 19 physicians, an optometrist (Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky.), five software company executives, two physicists, seven engineers and a microbiologist.
Perhaps if people knew more about the backgrounds of who was representing them, they wouldn’t think they were all dummies!
Rasmussen surveyed 1,000 likely voters via telephone from April 27-28, 2013. The margin of error for the study was +/- 3 percent at a 95 percent confidence interval.
UPDATE: A previous version of this article listed Sen. Bill Nelson (D-Fla.) as an astronaut. While Nelson did complete a space flight, Jan. 12-18, 1986, as a payload specialist, he is not, by trade, an astronaut.
