How do we change Congress and put an end to rampant corruption?

When our found­ing fathers put togeth­er our plan of gov­ern­ment at the Con­sti­tu­tion­al Con­ven­tion in Philadel­phia, they spent a great deal more time ham­mer­ing out the details that con­cern the leg­isla­tive branch (Con­gress) than the details that describe how the oth­er two branch­es are sup­posed to work.

This was not acci­den­tal — our found­ing fathers believed that the branch of gov­ern­ment charged with mak­ing laws would play the lead­ing role in deter­min­ing the direc­tion of the coun­try. Though gen­er­a­tions of pres­i­dents and judges have increased the stature and impor­tance of their own branch­es of gov­ern­ment, Con­gress has not dimin­ished in importance.

It does­n’t always assert its pow­er, but it is still our only law­mak­ing institution.

Unfor­tu­nate­ly, Con­gress is sus­cep­ti­ble to corruption.

Our founders did not antic­i­pate the advent of the paid lob­by­ing indus­try, which dom­i­nates the dis­cus­sion in our nation’s cap­i­tal at the expense of the peo­ple mem­bers of Con­gress are sup­posed to rep­re­sent. End­ing cor­rup­tion is what respect­ed pro­fes­sor Lawrence Lessig calls a “first prob­lem”. By that he means a prob­lem that is not nec­es­sar­i­ly more impor­tant than oth­er prob­lems (like the cli­mate cri­sis) but one that must be solved in order for oth­ers to be solved.

We have not made much head­way in solv­ing this “first prob­lem” of cor­rup­tion. In fact, with the Cor­po­ra­tions Unit­ed rul­ing last year, things have only got­ten worse.

Obvi­ous­ly, amend­ing the Con­sti­tu­tion to reverse Cor­po­ra­tions Unit­ed and end the prac­tice of equat­ing cor­po­ra­tions as per­sons is of para­mount impor­tance. But what else should be done to change Con­gress and put an end to ram­pant cor­rup­tion? We’re putting togeth­er a list of pos­si­bil­i­ties and we’d like read­er input. What do you think? How would you like to see Con­gress changed?

Please share any sug­ges­tions you have in the comments.