Forum Post: Change Congressional and Senate Assignment Rules

I would suggest one the way to fix Congress is to change the systems of incentives. People go into politics for a few reasons: 1) they love their country and think they have a better solution, (2) they love power (3) they love money.

So: 1) Link congressional pay to country performance as in:

http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/link-congressional-pay-to-performance/

And 2) Change the way powerful committee memberships are assigned.

I'm not sure how memberships are assigned, but I think currently these are assigned by seniority.

Instead, the People need to take back control of these assignments and hold committee members accountable when the nation does poorly. You might say, can't we just vote these poor performers out of power? Unfortunately, no, because they are voted in by some small congressional district for which they just happen to the most popular and maybe even the best candidate. The answer to this problem is not term limits because that politician may indeed be the best person for that district.

However, just because they are the best person in some small district, does not mean they are the best person for All of America, and when they are chairman of some committee, they have disproportionate influence on all Americans, not just those from their district.

We need to change congressional rules for electing committee members and chairperson to prevent failures from holding important and powerful positions. Perhaps this can be done by banning congressmen and senators from being committee members if they were at the helm when the country performs poorly.

I don't have the answer on how to achieve this. Perhaps some among you would be willing to debate the merits and propose solutions along this line.