They literally are irrelevant. They were Representatives in a time when the average farmer or blacksmith didn't have the time nor inclination to care about politics so he voted, locally, for a man he trusted to travel to Washington and represent his interests in government. Today, with the internet, there's no reason why I can't draw up and propose a law before the House and have the rest of the nation just go online and vote for it directly. Likewise with Senators. An even larger issue is that the Federal Government was never supposed to be this powerful. States were supposed to be almost sovereign nations bound together in a union.