Fixing Congress

It's not going to happen, but Bob Kerrey has some sensible ideas about how to fix Congress. It would require a constitutional amendment:

1) Establish an open bipartisan national system of apportioning congressional districts. State legislatures are given this authority now. It is their gerrymandering of districts, which have contributed most to the polarized nature of congressional debates and to the sense that too few incumbents are actually at risk.

2) Set a limit of the number of terms that can be served. I’d say six in the House and two in the Senate should be enough to establish the continuity needed to maintain institutional memory.

3) Increase the qualifications for being able to run. Why not, for example, make everyone who wants to be a candidate for Congress take the same examination we give to men and women who want to become citizens? Shouldn’t each member of Congress know at least as much as a recent immigrant?

4) Create national rules for all federal elections. Take the power back from the political parties and give it to citizens concerned about when and how primaries are held, how they are to be financed, and what punishments are to be meted out to those who break the law.

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