Comment by NoMoreNicksLeft
6 hours ago
>Increasingly wishing for this from a fictional constitutional convention:
There's an interesting, one-time shakeup that we could actually accomplish. While it's true that there will never again be another constitutional amendment... there's already one out there that will never expire, partially ratified. Completely beyond Congress's ability to rescind it or cockblock it. Article the First.
Were it to be ratified, nearly immediately (whenever the next Census is), the House of Representatives has over 6000 seats. So many that the existing party apparatus wouldn't be able to vet candidates or manipulate. Lobbyists, even, would have a hard time allotting the slush funds to bribe them all.
And what would it take to do all of this? Maybe 10 or 12 people hammering (gently) on some state legislator in Nevada or Kansas. Convince him or her to pass the resolution to ratify. Nothing more than that. A single state even attempting to ratify it would start the ball rolling, and no one would be able to stop it.
I have long thought that capping the number of representatives in the House is the single worst thing to happen, structurally, to the United States government. Representatives should be as close to the people as possible, and spending millions every two years to represent nearly 3/4 of a million people isn't even close.
I'm not sure it really matters if the senate still exists. the money men will just move the bribes to the senators. winning a senate seat would mean you are a millionaire at minimum.