Chuck Grassley, Pete Domenici, Harry Reid and Robert Byrd all come from less than wealthy backgrounds, if that's what you're asking.

And simply coming from a certain family or being rich doesn't mean you are automatically entitled to a seat somewhere. You still have to be elected to it, even if you're a Kennedy or a member of some other political family. Kathleen Kennedy Townsend found this out when the normally Democratic electorate in Maryland decided not to elect her Governor.

A name can help you, but it doesn't guarantee you a thing.

I'm just pointing out that Congress is, by and large made up of the ecomonically elite social class. That is hardly what I would call representational.

It depends on what it's supposed to be representative of.

And it doesn't change the main idea behind Brady's post, that of democratic processes being protected not by elected representatives but by unelected nobility.

Most of them really aren't the nobility in the way you'd think, though. It's worse than that. Most of them just did something for the sitting government at some time in their lives, and got a favour in return. You get named to the Upper House for all sorts of dumb crap.