Term limits should be set. I think 12 years in Congress is about the optimum number: not too long to become your life, but also long enough to get "enough experience" and pass it along to the newcomers as they come in. That would be 6 terms for House Representatives and 2 for Senators.
Of course it's not a magic bullet. Many other things need to be changed:
1) banning corporations, PACs or any organization from giving money to politicians - only individuals should be able to donate and the sum should be limited to maybe $1,000 (allowing "NGO's" and such to give money is just a loophole looking to be abused)
2) making votes in Congress anonymous [1]. Votes shouldn't have "transparency". There's a reason why anywhere else voting is anonymous: it's much harder to get influenced this way, whether it's by money or peer/leader pressure (see invasion of Iraq, passing the "Patriot" Act, etc). The lobbyists can give you money, and then you can still vote as you wish, which over the long term it will seem like a less and less viable strategy for lobbyists.
3) switching to a much more democratic voting system ("approval voting" [2] would be ideal, but even the 2-voting rounds system that's used in some European countries would be a HUGE improvement, as it would fix the "spoiler effect" somewhat - but still nowhere near enough as approval voting does)
4) proportional party representation in Congress (seems like a no-brainer to me). The idea that 2 parties can dominate Congress/Parliament for a century seems ridiculous to me. Parties should rise and fall every 10 years or so, like it happens in Europe. That would put the focus much more on the issues and much less on "being on the Red or Blue team".
5) abolishing or fixing gerrymandering
6) maybe even regulating the revolving door issue (this one is a bit tricky to do, but I think other countries have some regulation for this)
I'm sure there are many other things that can improve how Congress works. The idea is to make them listen much more to the People [3] and much less to single rich individuals and corporations.
To add a few more things
- No more "language was inserted into the bill at the last moment by an anonymous 'staffer' "
- All bills have to have an evaluation clause where they describe the criteria for deciding if they are working or not and if they fail them then revoking / fixing
- Bills cover a single subject and dont attach a bunch of irrelevant stuff
- I would say 6 years max should be plenty then they have to skip at least one cycle
- term limits for supreme court
Then there's the really radical
- All congress people and staffers
+ Kids go to public school ... if its good enough for my kids, its good enough for yours
+ use the VA for healthcare ... same reason
+ Get a nice 401(k) just like we have to live with (the people should get to pick the funds they get to invest in for extra credit)
+ Get fired if they are late 3 times like a large number of low-wage employees are ....
etc. etc.
Bring them into the real world instead of living above it
Fixing 5 requires the elimination of districts and restructuring across a popular vote.
At the scale of the US Federal government, this would require some form of automation to help inform voters of which candidates are on their short list (given preferences they've expressed). Ideally this calculation could be performed on computing hardware that the end user owns and trusts (be that a cell phone, or a RISC-V system with a fully open stack from layout through firmware to OS; this BTW is the only type of hardware that I would consider to be audit-able for inclusion in an assisted /paper trail/ (for recounts and etc) instant tally at close voting system.)
Of course it's not a magic bullet. Many other things need to be changed:
1) banning corporations, PACs or any organization from giving money to politicians - only individuals should be able to donate and the sum should be limited to maybe $1,000 (allowing "NGO's" and such to give money is just a loophole looking to be abused)
2) making votes in Congress anonymous [1]. Votes shouldn't have "transparency". There's a reason why anywhere else voting is anonymous: it's much harder to get influenced this way, whether it's by money or peer/leader pressure (see invasion of Iraq, passing the "Patriot" Act, etc). The lobbyists can give you money, and then you can still vote as you wish, which over the long term it will seem like a less and less viable strategy for lobbyists.
3) switching to a much more democratic voting system ("approval voting" [2] would be ideal, but even the 2-voting rounds system that's used in some European countries would be a HUGE improvement, as it would fix the "spoiler effect" somewhat - but still nowhere near enough as approval voting does)
4) proportional party representation in Congress (seems like a no-brainer to me). The idea that 2 parties can dominate Congress/Parliament for a century seems ridiculous to me. Parties should rise and fall every 10 years or so, like it happens in Europe. That would put the focus much more on the issues and much less on "being on the Red or Blue team".
5) abolishing or fixing gerrymandering
6) maybe even regulating the revolving door issue (this one is a bit tricky to do, but I think other countries have some regulation for this)
I'm sure there are many other things that can improve how Congress works. The idea is to make them listen much more to the People [3] and much less to single rich individuals and corporations.
[1] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1gEz__sMVaY
[2] - http://www.electology.org/#!approval-voting/cc04
[3] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mw2z9lV3W1g