Congress is broken and it needs to be fixed. If politicians could be convinced to toss aside partisan talking points, people would support reforms that make Congress, and the federal government as a whole, more responsive to the will of the people.
Democrats are horrified by the idea that Congress can overturn an election. Republicans are equally horrified that Democrats have attempted to federalize state-run elections, under the lie that civil rights are at stake if federal bureaucrats are not erasing local and state-approved election laws.
There are a number of changes to law and congressional procedure that would make government run better. These necessary reforms include decentralizing power within Congress, increasing the size of legislatures, and imposing strict term limits.
First, the House of Representatives should implement rules that will allow amendments on all bills, making an “Open Rule” the norm for doing business. This would revolutionize the current practice, in which leadership holds all the cards.
The Senate needs similar reforms to allow amendments on bills again, moving away from the current tactic of “filling the tree” that leaders of both parties use — filling up the amendment slots with meaningless technical changes for the sole purpose of blocking rank-and-file senators from getting votes on meaningful amendments. A very important congressional reform would be to set up points of order in both chambers that cannot be waived targeting legislation that is not single-subject. This would upend the current trend toward using omnibus legislation for everything.
These reforms appear radical in today’s context, but in fact, they would help restore the spirit of the American founding.
A new organization, Citizens Rising, has some excellent ideas to reform the size of Congress, so as to make politicians more responsive to citizens. The group points out that the average congressional district now has 760,000 inhabitants, while many state legislative districts contain over 100,000 people. At the state and federal level, districts are too large. The solution is to create “a revolution for small, Web-connected, political districts of 30,000 inhabitants or less, at all levels of government throughout the United States.”
An expansion of the House of Representatives would be a good idea if done right, because our elected officials in Washington, D.C., presently care more about what their colleagues think about them than their own constituents. Some might say that this would make Congress unwieldy. However, having worked there, I believe that Congress could not possibly get any more dysfunctional than it is right now.
Congress should operate more like a virtual New England town meeting (democracy at its best) rather than a disconnected small body of elected officials. That reform would improve government. The benefits of smaller districts include more citizen-politicians and less career-minded politicos.
A third idea is to implement strict “one and done” term limits on the House and Senate. Representatives would get one two-year term, and senators would be limited to one six-year term. This would remove the incentive for members to stay in Congress for the purpose of climbing the leadership ladder to lead influential committees. Some believe that this would empower staff and lobbyists to run Washington. They are ignoring the fact that this is already the case. Disconnecting politicians from a lifetime in the Washington political swamp will make them more responsive to the people and less to Washington-based interests inside and outside of government.
These are merely three ideas that will help right the ship of government. From my perspective, Republicans taking over the House will be a great way to check the power of Democrats who have been pushing an unpopular woke agenda. People want two things from the government — competence to solve problems and enough distance that they can be left alone. Today’s Congress has failed to deliver either.
Our political system has veered dramatically off course from the wise vision of the founders. It is time for change. Every Republican candidate can and should commit to procedural reforms that will make the current system work better.
Brian Darling is a former counsel and senior communications director for Sen. Rand Paul.
