My older son received a jury summons today. He can’t serve because he’s in college out of state. That’s too bad: he would be a terrific juror. But so would a lot of people. It won’t be hard for the county to find someone equally qualified to determine the legal fate of another person. For all of our human flaws, we do a decent job of serving as jurors.

I wish the U.S. had representative government that was more like the jury system, in which ordinary citizens were chosen to serve, did their conscientious best, voted based on common sense without blind partisanship, and went home when the job was done.

A representative government modeled after our system for selecting jurors wouldn’t be perfect. But I feel sure it would be more perfect than the cronied, corrupt, mistrusted system of legislative representation we have now. And isn’t “more perfect” the kind of Union we adopted the Constitution to ensure anyway?

If I received a summons to serve in Congress, I would serve. And I would do my best, guided by my conscience on each issue that came up for consideration. And I would trust you to do the same. And when you came home, I would thank you for your service.