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Most people would probably agree that in order to for the public to have a bigger voice in government at least two things need to happen: 1) reduce the power of special interests, and 2) increase public participation in government.
One seemingly simple step in the right direction is to improve civic education in our schools. A no-brainer, especially since a direct link has been made between decreased civic education and decreased public participation, see William A. Galston, Civic Education and Political Participation.
Another simple step is to make voting mandatory. Voting is the duty of all citizens, just like jury duty. Our judicial system can not work without citizen participation. Similarly, our legislative and executive systems work best when citizen participation is high. In Australia, for example, voting is required – if a person doesn’t vote, then they get a ticket – and 90% vote. Does anyone doubt that if the voter participation in the U.S. was 90% that we would have national healthcare by now? Or higher minimum wages, better education, stricter environmental enforcement, etc?
A more difficult step is to remove the personhood status of corporations, which allows them the ability to influence public policy. I am not anti-business. I think businesses and corporations are important and have a valuable purpose to provide cost-effective goods and services. However, corporations have no right to participate in public policy, because they are not people.
Compared to the overwhelming majority of American citizens, corporations have far greater resources and access to decision-makers, hence greater influence over decision makers. They aren’t punished the same as people: if three-strikes-your-out were applied to defense contractors they all would have been out of business years ago. Basically, the sole purpose of corporations is to generate wealth. Yet we’ve all heard about good corporate citizens, referring to their "donations" for this or that cause. Would they be so "altruistic" if they were not allowed to advertise their generosity? Of course not, because corporations are bound by law to serve the bottom line. So they view "donations" as public relations investments that enhance their image. Finally, corporations never die. They simply are not people.
How did corporations achieve personhood status in the first place? Thomm Hartmann describes this eloquently, http://www.commondreams.org/views02/1211-01.htm. Hartmann quotes Lincoln after the Civil War, "As a result of the war corporations have been enthroned and an era of corruption in high places will follow, and the money power of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until all wealth is aggregated in a few hands and the Republic is destroyed. I feel at this moment more anxiety than ever before, even in the midst of war. God grant that my suspicions may prove groundless."
Hartmann goes on to describe the relentless efforts of the railroad barons to gain personhood status. He writes, "Finally, in 1886, the Court's reporter defied his own Chief Justice and improperly wrote a headnote that moved corporations out of the privileges category and gave them rights - an equal status with humans. (Last year we found the correspondence between the two in the National Archives and put it on the web. By the time the Reporter's headnotes were published, the Chief Justice was dead.)".
So, personhood status was awarded to corporations by a court reporter, not by a Judge, nor by Congress, and certainly not by the Constitution.
Summarizing, we need to politicize the population through better civic education in our schools and mandatory voting. Then we can focus on removing corporation influence. This can be done. Women fought for 100 years to get the franchise. African Americans were enslaved for hundreds of years. When women first started to fight for the vote it was widely thought to be ridiculous; that the status quo was just the way nature was. It was the same with slavery.
The presidential election as well as the dire state we find ourselves in today (military and economic disasters), have already raised political awareness. With the sweeping change in government that will come next month we have an opportunity to influence the direction of the Republic.
