How to fix Congress? Eliminate Seniority
Excerpt from “Why Knot?” Buy the book at Amazon
Congress has been deadlocked for years, accomplishing little, due to partisan rivalry. Some think term limits might change the way Washington works, but that would take a Constitutional amendment. Others look for campaign finance reform, but for every rule there’s a loophole.
I suggest eliminating the seniority rules of the House and Senate. Replace those rules with another way of establishing committee memberships and chairmanships, and much of the bartering of favors would disappear, smashing personal power bases, and weakening the influence of lobbyists as well.
Members of Congress could choose which committees they wanted to serve on, and membership could be decided by lot. Chairmen, too, could be selected by lot and could stay in the post no more than a year. As a result, incumbents would no longer have an advantage over newcomers in elections, leading to shorter terms. And with no clear centers of power to focus on, lobbyists would no longer be motivated to direct vast sums of money toward particular races. By reducing the incentive for corruption, corruption would decline.
How could we get from here to there? Congress would never make such a change. The President doesn’t have the authority to do it. A Constitutional amendment could bring about such a change, but that would never happen because Congress would never vote for it, and state legislatures, which have to ratify amendments, have the same kind of seniority rules, with similar entrenched power structures.
But there is a practical solution. Today, with seniority rules, some elected representatives have far more power than others. If my district has a freshman congressman, I am not fully and equally represented. Hence a group of citizens could bring a class-action suit against Congress, challenging seniority rules. Then the Supreme Court could decide the issue, on the basis of the principle of one person one vote.
