The Let America Vote Act introduced by four dedicated members of the House would be a tremendous step forward to give more voters actually an opportunity to vote in primaries and thus incentives to come out and vote. There are lots of initiatives, like National Primary Day, ranked choice voting, and as Glenwood states term limits would be welcome too (perhaps coupled with increasing the 2 year house election cycle to 4 years, so especially newly elected House members would not have to start running for re-election as soon as they get their feet wet in Congress). Anything that can be done to increase bi-partisanship in Congress will help restore trust in government. Where to begin, especially with so many different election rules for each State and the ability for Party officials to change these rules on a dime.
Good start on this subject but not enough meat on the bones.
The power of incumbency goes beyond the political color of the district. Incumbents have name recognition, postal franking, town hall meetings that are essentially paid for by constituents, and the age old ability to bring pork back to their districts. IMHO this is an insurmountable problem for new blood of either party. It also gives us a product (Congressman or Senator) who is often lazier and already knows all the answers his constituents weren't smart enough to ask. In other words they're arrogant, and spend too much money scratching every other incumbents back, raising the level of government spending to the heights that they now are instead of having sensible policy decision based on merit.
The only real answer is Term Limits. We have 330 million people in this country (NOT counting the undocumented immigrants.). Surely there are 535 people who could be replaced every, say, 20 years at most. Otherwise they stay forever, blocking good ideas and clogging up our system with regulations and excess. Enough is enough.
Trouble is Congress, by the Constitution, has change the laws on themselves and few are responsible enough to do so. There's a Convention of states process but that's tough. They won't change until we force em to. So let's start forcing....!
The Let America Vote Act introduced by four dedicated members of the House would be a tremendous step forward to give more voters actually an opportunity to vote in primaries and thus incentives to come out and vote. There are lots of initiatives, like National Primary Day, ranked choice voting, and as Glenwood states term limits would be welcome too (perhaps coupled with increasing the 2 year house election cycle to 4 years, so especially newly elected House members would not have to start running for re-election as soon as they get their feet wet in Congress). Anything that can be done to increase bi-partisanship in Congress will help restore trust in government. Where to begin, especially with so many different election rules for each State and the ability for Party officials to change these rules on a dime.
Good start on this subject but not enough meat on the bones.
The power of incumbency goes beyond the political color of the district. Incumbents have name recognition, postal franking, town hall meetings that are essentially paid for by constituents, and the age old ability to bring pork back to their districts. IMHO this is an insurmountable problem for new blood of either party. It also gives us a product (Congressman or Senator) who is often lazier and already knows all the answers his constituents weren't smart enough to ask. In other words they're arrogant, and spend too much money scratching every other incumbents back, raising the level of government spending to the heights that they now are instead of having sensible policy decision based on merit.
The only real answer is Term Limits. We have 330 million people in this country (NOT counting the undocumented immigrants.). Surely there are 535 people who could be replaced every, say, 20 years at most. Otherwise they stay forever, blocking good ideas and clogging up our system with regulations and excess. Enough is enough.
Trouble is Congress, by the Constitution, has change the laws on themselves and few are responsible enough to do so. There's a Convention of states process but that's tough. They won't change until we force em to. So let's start forcing....!