Obviously most are plenty dissatisfied with Congress as a whole, but on an individual basis how do the voters feel about their state representative. Will voters connect the dots when they vote in the mid-term elections.

If Americans want a change then we need to look at the big picture and vote accordingly.

Sadly, these low numbers probably don't mean anything in terms of actually changing anything in Congress. While this Gallup poll doesn't include the relevant information, the historical trend has been for people to approve of their own members of Congress even as they disapprove of Congress as a whole. Even if their own member of Congress voted with the majority in every single roll call vote taken, people tend to support the local guy who they voted for, which is why the incumbants keep getting re-elected despite overall disapproval from Congress as a whole.

The gerrymandering doesn't hurt, either. But I'm fairly convinced that if a nationwide redistricting reform was passed that created districts based on geography rather than political trends, there would be one election where everything got shaken up, followed by years of people re-electing the same incumbants over and over.

The only real solution is term limits, which would be seen (correctly, I think... even if the will of the voters turns out to be extremely stupid, it's still the will of the voters) as un-democratic. Well, that or throwing enough of Congress in prison that the voters are forced to vote for someone new.

Well let's see - Akaka is one of the senior statesmen from Hawaii and Time Magazine disses him - while he is in a race for his seat, challenged by Republicrat (very small D here) Ed case. So let's get the sequence - Time Magazine is part of Time Warner - AOL absorbed that corporate giant and Ed's cousin is Steve Case, founder of AOL. Shall Ed Case say "Thank you Cuz?"

Time's best Republicans list includes John Kyl and John McCain?? They MUST be KIDDING! I'm a long-time Arizonan who remembers well and still admires men such as Carl Hayden (D), Barry Goldwater (R), Mo Udall (D), and John Rhodes (R). And let me assure you, John Kyl and John McCain do NOT, in ANY WAY, measure up to those who once defined Arizona's bipartisan pride. None of those four listed above are still with us, all have, unfortunately for America, passed on; instead we're left with the likes of Kyl and McCain. How sad this new reality, how soured has become the wine, how bitter now the dregs.

I can't imagine how Joseph Lieberman slipped under the radar for top worst democratic Senator.

Wonder why Time did not honor James "There is no global warming" Inhofe as one of the worst?

Is the field just that competitive on the way to the bottom?

Come to think of it, add Oklahoma's Tom "Execute the Abortionist" Coborn, too.

Yet the others are worse? No wonder this country is in so much trouble.

Where is John Cornyn (R) TX and Kay Hutchinson (R) TX?

They are nothing but Bush apologists and have done nothing to stem the partisanship that keeps the Legislative Branch out of the loop. Spend and Borrow, spend and borrow.

We need leadership in Congress and will not get it from Frist and Hasert! Throw them all out!

Gene Seale

Dallas Tx

geneseale@sbcglobal.net

Good grief! How could Tom Coburn (the pride of Oklahoma) and his doppleganger Jim Inhoffe not be included in the top five worst? With this combo you can get two for one! Tom Coburn of cross-word puzzle fame during Roberts' Supreme Court Justice Senate Confirmation Hearings. Then, of course, the underwhelming Inhoffe who was "outraged at the outrage" when Abu Ghraib was first unveiled. -- I don't know how Oklahoma continues year after year after year to elect the most ridiculous, least intelligent, chronically bigotted and personally disgusting folks in the state to the position of US Senator! It's a feat rarely replicated elsewhere.