At minimum, a patch to the legislative system that requires actual voters' opinions (and not just lobbyist voters, but rather a statistically-random sampling) somewhere along the track to getting bills passed, even if it's just as a veto.
Preferably, though, a more complete restructuring of the legislative system that more tightly constricts what an individual bill can do (so nothing can be "tacked on" to anything else), requires that bills expire and must be re-evaluated after some period, and perhaps enables something equivalent to the "double-jeapordy" condition of the judicial system, where once a bill has been rejected for containing particular offensive clauses, no bill may then be introduced from then on if it contains those clauses or anything which would be equivalent in effect to them.
Bringing voter opinion into the picture for each piece of legislature would be a disaster. It's unreasonable to expect the public to be educated enough on each issue to meaningfully participate in this issue. What would happen is that it would make things worse, as politicians would have to pump even more money into advertisements for his/her pet issue; deepening the unfortunate dependency on special interest money from politicians.
The real solution is to tackle the lobbying and campaign finance issues, and all of these other issues will improve.
Well, sure, if you just expect them to vote with no priming whatsoever, they're going to make a stupid decision. This would be somewhat like asking a jury to vote on someone's guilt or innocence without first having a trial, or to vote on a representative without first having campaigns and debates (which I still consider kind of piffling in comparison, but that's a different issue.)
So—following instead on the judicial branch's nice example of bottom-up democratic decision making—why not just take 12 random folks, put them in a room, introduce the bill, bring out those in favour to make their points, and then—this is important—bring out a true devil's advocate to make the strongest possible case against the bill—and then have the jury vote on whether to pass it on? The worst thing that could happen is that the legal process would bog down greatly, because of all the bills suddenly not getting passed.
(Also, I don't think there's a real way to stop lobbying in spirit. Perhaps in whatever its current form is, yes, but there will always be new ways for corporations to make someone's life happier and more comfortable in exchange for undue political consideration. Unless we can remove the incentive corporations have to do this—by restructuring the legislative system itself—they will continue to apply all their ingenuity to the "problem" of making law that most greatly benefits them. And they will keep getting away with it, because the devices built into humans that we use to punish one-another for these sorts of social norm violations—shaming, group-exile, and the like—don't apply to corporate entities, which can split, merge, rename, dissolve and recreate at will, without a single actual employee having to move office. "Blackwater" is a shunned name, now, but hardly anyone has an opinion about "XE"... but oh, wait, it's called "Academi" now—I hadn't even heard!)
Small comment - actual voters' opinions isn't necessarily enough, if voters aren't informed about the actual consequences/implications of the legislation.
When SOPA came up in discussion recently amongst a few folks I was talking to, as soon as they heard the full spoken name of the bill - 'Stop Online Piracy Act' - they began to put their support behind it. That's how quickly and easily opinions can be formed - it took some calm and open discussion before they began to even consider it as a potential gray area.
I wonder (seriously) if banning names for bills wouldn't be a bad idea. No more cutesy names or names that are a blantant sympathy ploy ("Rachels's Law", or whatever). Just make them refer to it as HR3415 or whatever the actual designation is.
"You can know the name of a bird in all the languages of the world, but when you're finished, you'll know absolutely nothing whatever about the bird. So let's look at the bird and see what it's doing — that's what counts. I learned very early the difference between knowing the name of something and knowing something." — Richard Feynman
I guess the effect you're describing could've been multiplied if SOPA had been a backronym too. "USA PATRIOT Act? How could that be bad! Just look at its name!"
Preferably, though, a more complete restructuring of the legislative system that more tightly constricts what an individual bill can do (so nothing can be "tacked on" to anything else), requires that bills expire and must be re-evaluated after some period, and perhaps enables something equivalent to the "double-jeapordy" condition of the judicial system, where once a bill has been rejected for containing particular offensive clauses, no bill may then be introduced from then on if it contains those clauses or anything which would be equivalent in effect to them.