"The preferences of the average American appear to have only a miniscule, near-zero, statistically non-significant impact upon public policy."
Also, they spend 30-70% of their time in office fundraising for the next election. When they're not doing that, they have no choice but to make sure the laws they pass keep their lobbyists who bribed them happy or they won't be able to run in the next election.
Require an annual Fiscal State of the Nation. Require a biennial budget resolution. Any time our debt/deficit is above 40% of GDP, ALL members of Congress are ineligible for reelection ever again. If the budget is not passed on time, they don't get paid. Congress has passed a budget on time in only four instances since 1952 and, for the past decade and a half, budgets have been an average of four months late. Some members of Congress complain that having their $174,000-a-year salary docked until they pass a budget would unfairly penalize them, but any other job would not pay an employee that doesn't do their job, and since they (are supposed to) work for us". But we need to apply some reasonable pressure to focus Congress' collective mind.
End the filibuster. Until the late 1830s, the filibuster remained a theoretical option, never actually exercised. The first Senate filibuster occurred in 1837. At the time, both the Senate and the House of Representatives allowed filibusters as a way to prevent a vote from taking place. They had to stand and speak non stop. Subsequent revisions to House rules limited filibuster privileges in that chamber, but the Senate continued to allow the tactic. After a series of filibusters in the 1960s over civil rights legislation, the Senate put a "two-track system" into place in 1970 under the leadership of Majority Leader Mike Mansfield and Majority Whip Robert Byrd. Before this system was introduced, a filibuster would stop the Senate from moving on to any other legislative activity. Tracking allows the majority leader, with unanimous consent or the agreement of the minority leader, to have more than one main motion pending on the floor as unfinished business. Under the two-track system, the Senate can have two or more pieces of legislation or nominations pending on the floor simultaneously by designating specific periods during the day when each one will be considered,
The notable side effect of this change was that by no longer bringing Senate business to a complete halt, filibusters on particular motions became politically easier for the minority to sustain. As a result, the number of filibusters began increasing rapidly, eventually leading to the modern era in which an effective supermajority requirement exists to pass legislation, with no practical requirement that the minority party actually hold the floor or extend debate.
n 1975, the Senate revised its cloture rule so that three-fifths of sworn senators (60 votes out of 100) could limit debate, except for changing Senate rules which still requires a two-thirds majority of those present and voting to invoke cloture. However, by returning to an absolute number of all Senators (60) rather than a proportion of those present and voting, the change also made any filibusters easier to sustain on the floor by a small number of senators from the minority party without requiring the presence of their minority colleagues. This further reduced the majority's leverage to force an issue through extended debate.
It is a delay tactic and a way for the minority in congress to throw a temper tantrum. It serves no practical purpose. It is completely counter to what the founders had intended. It needs removed.
The vast majority of the nitty-gritty work of drafting and even negotiating bills is done by staff. Make members of Congress the heavy lifters. If they are connected more to what they are doing, it may have more of an effect.
In the "world's greatest deliberative body," there is little deliberation. Bring that back. Actually have the members of Congress discuss issues like the grown-ups they're supposed to be.
Our founders were not stoic icons as they are portrayed to be. One reason they succeeded was that they were afraid of failure. They were terrified of it. That first Congress was already the "Plan B". Plan A was the Articles of Confederation, which failed. There was no Plan C. Our Congress doesn't care unless it costs them votes. That's their only motivation. That needs to stop.
Congress was the dominant body of government even well into the 20th century, with the exceptions of Jackson and Lincoln. A president job is executing laws that were crafted in Congress. No president until Franklin Roosevelt came into office with an agenda for his first 100 days. Time to bring Congress to what it is supposed to be. Give congress back the power it is supposed to have.
Term limits" I know, Congress keeps spouting it every time one side or another gets in trouble and mentions it to get a boost in ratings, but it actually needs to happen. The Congress was rotated when we first started. New elections for new Congress. Those in Congress then had farms to tend, hey already had a job when their terms ended. Being a congressperson (Senate or House) was a patriotic duty, not a lifelong job. Legislators had full-time work at home. If strictly read, the Constitution thought every two years new senators and every four years representatives would "vacate" their seats, giving a voice to all Americans, not just a detached feckless few.
Strictly read, it implies, every election there would be new members of congress, not the old guard, entrenched. New people, new ideas keeping us moving forward. Hopefully, discarding bad laws.
The Founders feared the creation of a permanent political class that existed separate from American society. Congress was never intended to be a career. The idea was "citizen statesmen." Our founding fathers wanted honorable people of common origin to do their duty and serve their state or country for a limited time, then step aside and go back to their farms or businesses and let others serve in their place.
The design was not for careers in politics. 2 term limits for both house and senate. No more.
Banning ALL political parties. I spoke in my first article (A case against the Congress of the Unites States of America) about how parties are a major problem in congress (as well as in my article A case Against All political Parties in the Unites States of America). If you took political parties to be a true snap shot of the populace they're supposed to represent, you'd have a very negative view of Americans. Divided, adversarial, conniving, and manipulative,, exploitive, these are all traits intentionally built into the party system. They pit us against each other, red vs blue. And let's be honest, that's all it is anymore. Voting because you don't like the other color, not because of ideas. Sounds as bad as the Bloods (red) and Cryps (blue), and just as infantile.
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