BUMPER stickers that said 'My representative is a rocket scientist' used to be popular in cars that tooled around in the general area where the eight Ivy League schools are located. In these New Jersey-New York and New England areas, highly trained scientists with doctorate degrees in the hard sciences from the said schools easily won congressional seats without engaging in retail politics. They were 100-percent Democrats. They worked quietly and with precision and rigor, without the hysterics and media-grabbing antics of the bible-thumpers that represented the poor states whose policy predisposition is to defund public education and safety nets for the marginalized and advocate for the reign of theocracy.

These rocket scientists cum representatives of districts with above-par educational achievements skipped the Sunday political talk shows and showboating during plenary debates, and most retired from the House of Representatives without getting a single media coverage. And that was fine by them. But the intellectual rigor that they brought to Congress, especially during committee-level work, made up for the laziness and brazenness of the Bible-thumpers — and their general inattention to serious legislative work.