How to fix America's broken political system?

With politicians gerrymandering districts with computer precision so that they pick their voters instead of voters picking the politicians... With big money capturing the political process from start to finish... With political parties now having full on disinformation & propaganda outlets... With voters all to often being to lazy to even show up to vote...

How do we go about fixing America's broken political system so that it is less dysfunctional and more responsive to the will of regular people? Let's hear some ideas.

1- Public funding of federal elections. No private contributions, no fund raising, none of that. If you're running for this office, you get that budget, and that's all. Includes "free" TV and radio time and compulsory debates.
2- Term limits for congresscritters.
3 - Senators go back to being appointed by state governments rather than elected.
4 - Congressional districts drawn by automated device (computers, IOW) according to mathematics and nothing else. No seat should be "safe."
5 - Severe restrictions on lobbying. No more "fact finding missions" to Barbados or whatnot.
6 - Congress cannot exempt itself from the laws & programs it enacts.

I think those are the main bits.

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.--Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

Write to the Queen, apologize and ask her nicely for re-admission to the British Empire.

States need to be updated.

I see absolutely no upside to having Senators appointed. So many state level districts are gerrymandered so all that would do is allow the gerrymandered bodies to also control the Senate.

Every law should be required to have a set of objective benchmarks it is intended to address. If, after a set period of time (say 5 years), the law hasn't accomplished at least 50% of its benchmarks, the law is repealed.

I don't understand what this would accomplish. I see this making things worse, rather than better, because Senators would be less accountable to the states they represent.

It will necessarily take some human intervention, but some states such as California have gone this route. Unsurprisingly, there was resistance to this from both sides (though, stronger from the Republicans).

Why not just have a sunset clause built into every law?

That is a fascinating map, isn't it?

None of that would work and in fact would probably makes things much, much worse.

Is localism and local action part of the solution? Or is that giving up on the national issues?

Because an effective law should stay on the books. Additionally, this gives voters another metric to evaluate politicians. If the majority of laws written by a particular member of Congress don't work, then he or she needs to be tossed out on their ear.

The original concept was that the Senate represented the several states with equal representation (each state gets two votes, which in practice usually means each state gets one vote) while the House represented the people, with proportional representation (states with bigger populations get more say). This was how the question of "fair" representation in the federal legislature was resolved during the Constitutional Convention. When senators switched from being appointed by the states to being elected by the people, that crucial balance was lost. In a way, it gave a lot more power to the federal government at the expense of the states. It needs to be restored as part of bringing the fedgov back to what it was intended to be instead of the bloated monstrosity it's become.

Teach people to think critically.
Remove money from the political system.

1) Is unconstitutional as you could never legally prevent a rich person from self financing their own campaign.
2) There is this idea that you would get only people running for congress who were devoted to public service. Instead the following is likely to happen

A) Term limited members of Congress will be corrupt on a level not conceived of today. Because they have only a limited time in office they will have a strong incentive to "grab what they can while they can"
B) It will move the real power in Washington away from Congress and much more toward unelected government bureaucrats who have been around for years and know the machinery of government much better than short time congressionman

3) I guess you believe that part time state legislators can decide better than the people of a state? I don't.

Note, if this was true today, there would be more than SEVENTY Republican Senators as opposed to 51.

Do you really think that is a good idea?
4) Won't work, given that you'll end up with no more "minority/supermajority" districts meant to ensure the election of a minimal number of black and Hispanic members of Congress. No way anyone would agree to that.

Also a computer would inevitably chop areas into districts with no regard for issues like shared community histories and values

5) Congressman need to go on more fact finding missions overseas, not less. The last thing we need are members of Congress afraid to leave Washington D. C.
6) Sounds good but I'm uncertain of the execution. Sometimes law making requires a degree of disconnection from the impact of those laws in order to be unbiased.

Says the man who thinks with only his heart.

It’s a unified system.

With half of it missing.

yep, all good points!

No I’m doesn’t!

1. Proportional Representation via the Australian Senate system (minus above-the-line voting) for both the House and Senate. Multiply the size of each chamber by at least 6 to compensate. Preferably 10 or more. We have some of the worst representation ratios in the world. Let's fix that.

2. Implement 1 in all the states.

... Honestly I think once you do that, most of the symptoms of the structural problems imposed by FPTP voting go away, as "Are you really gonna vote for the other guy?" ceases to be a valid threat. It even helps with gerrymandering. Big tent parties no longer need to exist. But the presidency is still an issue, so the list isn't over, though it is improved. A president would have run at least partially on their coalition-building skills in order to work with a Congress that doesn't necessarily have anywhere close to half of the President's party, so that helps things, but not enough. I'm much less sure what to do here, given 1 and 2. Probably wait and see how things shake out before proposing additional reforms.

Sorry, Amerexit is irreversible.

Hmm. Needs a better name. Amgone? Americadieu?

@Lanzman, bear with me because while I agree with your other points, I'm still really not understanding what this would accomplish. I'm not understanding how that balance was lost. Each state still gets two Senators, yes? So in the Senate, Wyoming still gets an equal number of votes to California, regardless of how those Senators were elected. How does switching how we elect Senators throw that balance off? Would switching back to the old method suddenly give states like Wyoming more voting power?

How? If anything, it preserved the power of smaller states.

Pending explanation of my above questions, it really seems that this is the crux of the argument--that it's closer to what was originally intended. But that's not much of an argument, because we have amended the Constitution several times to fix what wasn't working--in this case, that there was more corruption in the state legislatures electing Senators and it bogged down state legislatures.

Lanzmans ideas generally seem good although the funding rules would have lots of loopholes.

Changing senators to being appointed by state governments could have unintended consequences. It could very well end up making state elections be fought over national issues.

Again, because the basis for the Congress was that there had to be balance between the wishes of the people and the wishes of the state governments. It was meant as a check on "pure" democracy, which the founders quite rightly feared. This is why the Senate is always thought of as the senior chamber and why its rythms are slower and more deliberative that those of the House. Senators mind the concerns of the states, balancing big states like California against small states like Rhode Island with equal representation. Thus, they should be appointed by the state governments so that their concerns align with the state governments. It's also why Senators have six-year terms vice the two year terms of Congressmen. The House minds the interests of the people, with proportional representation so that a large, sparsely populated agrarian area has equal say with a small, densely populated urban one. Or in other words, so that New York, Chicago, and LA don't steamroll the whole rest of the country. The entire structure counts as one of those famous "checks and balances" you learned about in grade school.

No, it diluted the power of all of the states because Senators now have to answer directly to the voters, rather than the state governments. So populism plays a much greater role in the upper chamber than it should. When the Senate went to direct elections, its concerns went from overarching, state and nation-wide ones to whatever has the momentary attention of the masses.

Which points up that the matter should have been addressed at the state level. The states are not supposed to be simple administrative divisions under the authority of the central government, they're supposed to be sovereign entities which have agreed to cooperate and participate in a republican government for their common interest while giving up a small portion of their autonomy in matters that concern the union as a whole.

I fail to see how your proposed change (which after all was ditched because it caused massive corruption) would change any of that for the better. All that would do is extend the powers of the gerrymandered which I find repulsive. California still only has 2 senators for its 41 million people vs 2 senators for Wyoming's can't fill a football stadium population. So balance is maintained and the people of the state get to directly decide via a theoretically free and fair vote so nothing meaningful is lost and just the corrupt power of the political elites is curtailed.

Now, if any branch of Congress should be reformed it is the House where the not constitutionally mandated cap on the total number of reps really fucks high population states. We already have the Senate to protect small population states yet we have short circuited the House so it no longer serves its intended function.

I would lift the cap and make districts as small as possible. 10,000 or 20,000 sound about right so regular people knocking on doors might actually have a chance. Shit have at large reps where proportional representation is given so no vote is wasted and you are really on to something. Ranked voting preferences would really help third parties and thus help break up gridlock in Congress.

I assume you were not being serious but Wyoming has about four times the population of the capacity of the largest football stadium in the United States.

It was a manner of speech as you well understood, Dayton.