How To Fix Congress - And Why It Won't Happen

According to polls, public approval of Congress is at an all time low - about 12% and disapproval at an all time high - about 84%. How to fix this? I have some ideas, but before suggesting a cure, there must first be a diagnosis.

So. What's wrong with the congress?

Some of the ills of congress are built into our constitution. The US Senate, for example, which likes to characterize itself as "the world's greatest deliberative body" is arguably the "free world's" least democratic body. That is, first of all, a consequence of the constitutional arrangement that each state, regardless of size or economic output, have an equal number of senators. This is compounded by the increasingly inexplicable commitment of the senate to the requirement of a supermajority of senators to pass any legislation at all. My solution to that: get rid of paper filibusters imposed by the cloture rule. Let's go back to "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington" style of filibuster. Filibusters would become more rare because voters could see what was happening and better understand what it was about.

By the way, some republicans want to fix the senate by repealing the seventeenth amendment that provided direct popular election of senators. What, we have too much democracy?

A common complaint about the House of Representatives is "My representative doesn't listen to people like me."

Some advocate term limits to fix this. I say, we already have term limits. Elections. What we don't have is enough representatives.

We are going through redistricting right now. This is the process after every decenniel census (except for the 1920 census - there was not a reapportionment after that census). First congress reapportions seats in the House of Representatives to the states according to population. District boundaries are then redrawn by state legislatures and in some cases by courts.

Contrary to popular opinion, the number of seats in the House of Representatives is not in the constitution. But the number has not changed since it was set at 435 in 1911. At that time, each member of the House represented about 216,000 citizens. Since then, our population has more than tripled, but the number remains the same. Now each member represents about 708,000 constituents.

My suggestion: enlarge the House so that each member represents about 216,000 citizens. With modern communications systems, that would allow the members closer communication with constituents. It would also lower the financial and organizational barriers to running for office. It might reduce the influence of money in politics and even create opportunities for more political parties to become competitive.

How many representatives would we have? About 1,426. Admittedly, that might make the body even more unwieldy, but it might force more cooperation. It would certainly induce representatives to be more responsive to constituents.

How could we accommodate so many representatives? We could replace the desks on the floor of the House with benches. We could also reduce representatives' personal staffs. Currently, members are allowed to hire as many as eighteen personal staffers. Reduce that to five per member. Representatives might have to study bills themselves, possibly answer phones and write some of their own correspondence. Where would they get the time to do this? By going to fewer fund raising events.

Something else worth trying is proportional representation, but that's a really wonky subject I'll save for later.

None of this will happen, because all of these measures would reduce the present power of incumbents and wealthy patrons.