Stop electing lawyers!

In France, most politicians and bureaucrats graduated from the same university. It has become the one item that everyone who wants to get ahead needs on their resume. It's a narrow world where everyone basically has been taught to think alike.

How did we get to that point in the US? How has law school become our equivalent of France's École Normale?

Using the Real Clear Politics website and, usually, Wikipedia, I pulled up the names of all of the major candidates for Senate and looked at their educational background. Of the 71 Republicans, Democrats, and Charlie Christ running for the Senate, fully 34, or 48%, have law degrees.

In six races out of thirty-five (Alabama, Colorado, Illinois, New Hampshire, Ohio, and Oregon) (Alabama, Colorado, Illinois, New Hampshire, Ohio, and Oregon) voters will have no choice but to elect a lawyer. In only eight of 35 races (Arkansas, California, Maryland, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania Washington, and West Virginia) are there no lawyers on the ballot. Democrats have 20 lawyers out of 35 candidates, and Republican have 13 of 35 (Charlie Christ in Florida is also a lawyer.) Also, as far as I could tell, only one candidate has no college at all: Tom Sullivan in Idaho.

Lawyers actually make up about 1% of the country. How have we come to the point where far too many see law school as a qualifying factor?

To use Bill Buckley's formulation: I'd rather be governed by the first 50 names in the phone book.