Nonsense. There are some bastards in there, but there are also a lot of people who sincerely feel that they can help by serving in public office.
My two cents would be,
Firstly, i do not think you should be payed for public service in politics, you should actually want to do the job, to serve the people. And besides, i am sure that once you leave office you will be payed handsomely to talk and write about your experiences.
The costs you have when in the job are small, particulary when you can claim almost anything as a work expense when in office. So that first off ensure you only get people who actually want to help the country, leading the country.
Secondly, All campaign funding should not be payed to the individual congressman or senator when running for election, but should go to the party head for distribution as this eliminates buying favour from the elected representative, And so all desicions made are from the facts not a bias concerning money, and therefore reelection. This is dependent on the money being given blind to the party, So there should be established a independent body to act as intermediatary so only they know who gave they money when.
People who have worked for the government should not be allowed to work in fields that they either oversaw, or worked on when working for the government. However you could work at a company that you did not have anything to do with. Such as, A guy working at the SEC could not get a job on wall street when he leaves public service, but he could get a job teaching at Harvard, or at a non wall street bank. This ensures that there is no bias when regulations and laws are discussed or debated.
I personally would prefer all politicians not actually be either party, at least then they wouldnt be a “party line” to follow. If everyone in politics just listened to the argument, based all decisions on their own viewpoint and the state they represents views, they hopefully the votes would not basically depend on who controlled the senate or whatever but more on the actual issue.
Also, i understand the purpose of being able to see who voted for what, but any politician might base a vote, not on the issue but how it will be perceived and twisted down the line. For example, Nancy Pelosi, was very happy to get so many republicans to vote for the 90% tax on bonuses because it will hurt them down the line, and it goes against the party line, when it was “the right thing to do” in most peoples views. By that i mean the populist outrage over the bonuses made not voting for the bill unpopular to the masses, and the masses decide elections, so most of the republicans fell for the trap. You shouldnt be setting traps and getting one over on the other side when you are dealing with real problems.
So ideally if we could get all the policitians to stop being…politicians, everything would work so much better for all, so many of the votes come down to trading votes and backing the other guy into the position you want him to be in the public eye that issues suffer over the political gamesmanship.
If anyone can figure that problem out, i am sure we could be better off, the only way i can think of to do it would require everyone in the country to follow all political actions and be very open and vocal about the problem and the issue, which i am sure would hurt other sectors of the country. Of course this would also require a press who doesnt twist and distort the facts to fit their own political viewpoint and educate their viewers to be mad about the wrong thing, or downplay something serious. The media should be reminded that they exist to inform of the facts, not decide them.
This would mean that political office would be confined to either the independently wealthy, or to people who could find ways to be “paid for their service” by someone other than the citizens–that is, by people with a vested interest in seeing some particular piece of legislation passed. You could make the latter illegal, but if politicians are expected to serve without pay, the pressure to get around those laws and find ways to make politics pay would be very high.
Congresscritters and other politicians have the same costs when in their job that anyone else has: food, shelter, clothing, Internet access, maybe the occasional book or movie or magazine subscription, wine, women, and song, etc. Legislating for a country of 300 million people is not really something you can do in your spare time. Many state legislatures do in fact pay little enough that it’s impossible to really make a living serving in them, yet even state legislatures typically demand enough time and effort that it’s hard or impossible to hold down a nine to five job while serving in them. As a result, you don’t wind up with some ideal of citizen legislators from all walks of life; rather, political offices tend to be filled with the sort of people who can afford to serve in the legislature and still pay the mortage: businessmen and members of certain professions–like lawyers, for example. Not so much school teachers, firefighters, factory workers, office workers, computer techs, or other ordinary folks. Those who can afford to serve in an unpaid or low-paid public office will of course have many vested interests of their own, which may not correspond to the interests of the people at large.
And again, a system like this can create a major incentive to serve in the legislature for a while (for low pay), then turn around and “cash in” by, for example, becoming a lobbyist and seeking to influence your former colleagues on behalf of the sort of people who can afford to hire ex-legislators as lobbyists.
This seems to contradict the idea of funneling all campaign contributions through political party leaders, which would surely greatly increase party unity and party discipline–which might or might not be a bad thing in itself. (Realistically, the U.S. will never have the sort of political parties as are seen in many other countries with parliamentary systems; we have 538 politicians each running his own campaign–435 Representatives, 100 Senators, and the President–and since each one stands or falls on his own, each one naturally acts in his own best political interests, with “party unity” being secondary.)
I did not say my idea was practical and without problems, anything with politics will always have problems.
I do see your point on it being restricted to the wealthy, but not if everyone had a fair share of applying to run as a candidate and one of the parties accepting you to run on their ballot, the party themselves can pick the candidate to give money to that best represents their views, which is basically what it is now. The difference would be it removes the money aspect of the potential runner, and as stated above removes the money from the job. So the people with a vested interest to get particular legislation passed would be the party sponsoring you.
Which obviously has problems but it removes the direct link from company to congressman or whomever.
I do also understand your point regarding the no pay for service, i assume things are different in America, regarding writing things off as work expenses,(in Britain they seem to claim everything no matter how irrelevant). So perhaps some independent panel to cover living expenses to meet their standard of living, i am not suggesting working two jobs at once, but just a belief that if you truly want to serve your country money shouldnt be your motive. I understand that most arent payed a great deal, and it is not so much the money… i suppose it is more the principal.
Also, concerning the “cash in” aspect that is why i purposed the condition of being unable to work in the same arena after your time in the government.
And lastly i do understand my last comment was contradictory, but it maddens me when a vote. Such as the stimulus bill seems to be a straight party vote(3 senators notwithstanding) when it doesnt seem to be anything other than “this is what the party needs of you” Your point of they acting in their own interests first is more accurate in the grand scheme of things, so ill chalk that last comment to a idealist youth;)
Looks like most of the replies are forgetting the “involuntary” part.
Say you want labor for cotton plantations. Some people are selected at random and forced to pick cotton. You motivate them by threatening to punish them if they don’t work hard enough.
This system works in the sense that cotton gets picked. Yay! Success!
The OP is proposing a similar system, only for politics. The problem is, how do you determine what constitutes “picked cotton” in politics? What if one of your politician-slaves decides to (figuratively speaking) tear up the crop, shit in the well and burn down the house? I know I would be inclined to do something like that if I was forced into politics…
That was my first thought as well. Force me to do something, and I’ll feel not just justified but obligated to do as much damage as possible in retaliation.
Do you apply the same logic to taxes? I assume you don’t pay the IRS in soiled (hehe) $1 bills.
We could consider this political service a tax - anyone who does it is exempt from federal taxation for the rest of their natural 
No; I owe the government for it’s services. And paying money I owe isn’t at all the same as being forced to perform a specific task.
But time is money!
So, when you observe “expert” professional politicians like Joe Biden, Al Gore, George W Bush, Barack Obama, Ron Paul and Nancy Pelosi on TV speaking their thoughts to the world at large, you really believe you’re listening to someone who’s actually sentient?
If so, that’s amazing 
How about a hybrid system, which adds a third house to Congress that is randomly selected? One randomly selected person from each representative’s district, drawn from the list of people who voted in that district, and given the same exact pay as the representatives (thus solving the involuntary part). The exact powers of this house could be less than the other two, maybe even just veto power on bills, and it would still be effective.
This system would keep the advantages of current system, but also add an average person check on the government. It would also create a house that doesn’t have to worry about reelection, so they can focus on doing their job. Also, the chance to get a nice paying job for two years might get more people out to vote (look how many people play the lottery). As a side benefit, it would make gerrymandering less effective (since trying to arrange districts so X party has a small majority in as many as possible will increase the chances of Y party getting someone who shares their views selected in more districts.) Also, it could encourage districts to cut down on voter fraud if the selection rules stated that if the person who was selected turned out to ineligible to vote, that district doesn’t get to send somebody to the third house that session.
The main downsides I see to this sort of system would be increased cost, more chances of someone in the government making a fool out of themselves/or the country, corruption (especially since these people wouldn’t be up for reelection, they might take barely legal “gifts” that actual congressmen would avoid.
We have that now. It’s called “voting”. :rolleyes:
They probably wouldn’t even know which were legal and which weren’t. Another problem is that the great majority would never be anything other than the puppets of the better trained and educated ( in government ) people around them. They wouldn’t have the knowledge they’d need to be anything else. They’d lack the knowledge and experience to tell truth from lies, competence from incompetence.
There’s a persistent myth in America that running a government is a job that requires no skill, no training, and no brains, and it’s just not true.
Do you actually thing that talking on TV is what these people do for a living - that it’s a relatively important part of their jobs? Really. Politics is an endless series of meetings, telephone conversations, lunch dates and clandestine backroom negotiations. That’s what politicians have to be good at, not speaking in front of cameras.
Hey, I have an idea! Let’s get rid of the people who currently run major corporations and replace them with random stockholders! We all know how lazy, stupid and greedy CEO’s are … how could picking someone at random for the job be any worse … ?
I’ve worked with politicians and their assistants for years. Qualifications earned by politicians are usually narrowly focused: lawyer, accountant, detergent salesman, union organizer and so on. Their assistants, who do nearly all of the hack work, are usually dedicated yes men and yes women selected from the party faithful.
Information fed to politicians during their over long careers is always through the filter of the party leader group who shape party dogma. They are usually the dedicated fanatics who think they have all the answers.
The opinions of the people as a whole are falsely assumed by politicians and their stooges to be identical with the prevailing set of party beliefs. That is why they act like dictators in this contemptible elective junta system many people are fooled into believing is “democracy”.
From my own observation, when you see a politician behave like a stumbling, ignorant buffoon on television I can assure you he or she does so because they really are stumbling, ignorant buffoons.
Umm, what’s the alternative? Electing (or conscripting) people who don’t have any opinions on public policy? How is that a superior alternative?
-Piker
Based upon my experience in Washington, DC, we are not dealing with the same political system. The party leadership on issues from the actual parties (DNC, RNC) is virtually zero. The party leadership in the House of Representatives is important, but not determinative. The party leadership in the Senate is mostly limited to herding stray cats.
From my own observation, people determined to see people as buffoons will always find evidence for their position. Take for example, Joe Biden. He’s brash. He doesn’t shut up. He’s annoying. But he is also a smart person and has considerable expertise on a number of complex issues. When he talks about things, he generally knows what he’s talking about to a respectable degree of expertise. But it seems that, per your previous posts, you think he’s a buffoon.
Could you name some people you see on TV, perhaps have political differences with your own views, who you do not think are “buffoons?”
ETA: I’m not disputing that there are indeed incompetents elected to Federal office. In fact, I think it is somewhat embarrassing that there are not a greater number of more talented people elected to office. But, as the old story goes, we are a representative democracy, and dullards need someone to represent them, too.
What if we had a purely advisory body of randomly selected citizens? They would review every bill proposed in Congress and contribute their 2 cents, and maybe make their own original proposals or petitions. Congress would not have to do as they advise, but it would have to listen, and every resolution the House of the People (or whatever we call it) submits would at least be picked up by the media.
Your premise is that we can’t elect a few hundred competent people out of a pool of over two hundred million. How is reducing the pool going to help matters?
Your OP is missing the big point. Nobody just walked in the front door of Congress and took over. We, the average voters, put them all there and keep them there. If there’s a problem in the system, it’s us.