How Are Members of Congress Elected—and Could We Do Better?

Hardly anyone involved with the U.S. political campaign system is happy with it. Not the candidates who demean themselves begging for ever-increasing millions. Not most funders who are under constant pressure to dig ever deeper to provide those millions. And certainly not the voting public, locked in a world of endless negativity that becomes more divisive with every election cycle.

So what’s to be done about it?

What the Constitution Really Says About Congressional Selection

Here’s one idea. Stop electing people to Congress.

Hear me out. Or better yet, read Article I, Section 2 of the U.S. Constitution.

“The House of Representatives shall be composed of Members chosen every second year by the People of the several States.”

Note: the word the country’s Founders used was “chosen,” not “elected.”

The Constitution allows each state to decide how its members of Congress will be selected. So why not select them the way we choose juries? Juries decide guilt or innocence, incarceration or freedom, occasionally even life or death. Why not trust them to have a hand in creating policies and programs that affect our health, education, safety and other issues?

How Are Members of Congress Elected—And Could They Be Selected Instead?

Here’s one way it might work: To represent a congressional district in Congress, draft 21 people from the district’s registered voters list, without regard to political affiliation. Allow for deferments for medical or hardship situations. Then send the group to Washington to serve one two-year term.

Once there, they would elect their own leader to serve as the voting Member (like juries select a foreman). But the votes that Member would cast in committees and on the floor would represent a consensus of the group.

What about expertise? Well, no one enters Congress now with all of the above knowledge of economics, science, foreign or military policy. Professional staffs provide that. And the Senate would still be there as a check and balance, as the Founders intended.

Wouldn’t it be easy for lobbyists to dangle big money in front of novice members who have little, to sway their votes? Not if it risked a long prison term for bribery. And each member would be one of 21, unable to act alone. 

Would a Selected Congress Make Better Decisions?

Besides the salutary impact on campaigns, this plan likely would alter key policy decisions.

Would a Congress composed more of workers than millionaires have approved NAFTA? How anxious would those workers have been to ship manufacturing jobs to other countries?

Would such a Congress have been as willing to invade Iraq?

Would a Congress of middle income peers have rolled over for the Bush and Trump tax cuts favoring the rich and powerful? Would it have been as reticent to enact the Affordable Care Act or expand Medicare or Medicaid?

It’s hard to Imagine a selected, not elected group of apolitical members allowing Trump to usurp Congressional powers and destroy Civil Service, or take a chain saw to health, education, veterans’ benefits and other vital services.

Our non-elected group would not quaver at the prospect of being “primary-ied” in the next election. They would care more about facing their neighbors and friends after they returned home, to be able to look them in the eye rather than hanging their heads in shame.

Think of it. An end to many long, bitter, mega-million campaigns. A severe blow to the influence of K street power brokers. A more representative body than the Representatives who have failed to win our collective trust.

Yes, selection of just-people to the People’s House sounds like a radical idea. But weigh it against what we have now. Which do you prefer?

The floor’s open for more ideas. I’d love to hear them.

Comments? Criticism? Contact Joe Rothstein at jrothstein@rothstein.net

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