Why not have regular people run for Congress?

[Jkid]

Why not have regular people run for Congress?

It’s very clear that Congress, despite serious issues of public safety (gun control), finance (taxes), and economy (the Great Depression 2), and devolved to a do nothing Congress, primarily because the Republican Party is still offended of a black person being in the White House. Any issue that is dealt with will not get to the root cause or worse, they’ll just pay lip service. The worst part is that they still get paid while doing nothing.

While Congress is playing political football, people are suffering from unemployment, mental illness, and homelessness, fiscal crises, and health insurance problems. People are still being killed by guns due to the fact that the United States has the least restrictive gun laws in the world. The rich or “job creators” are still wealthy and they’ll still cutting jobs just to fatten their checking accounts. But your representatives at Congress don’t give a damn. As a matter of fact as long as the people are watching reality TV garbage, their infotainment, and eating their food, they don’t care.

Sadly the only way this situation can be resolved is if the people, not just wealthy people, but the American public just not be just politically active, but actually running for office. Think about all the people who are unemployed, and the many people who have political degrees and experience, a single job as a congressman or a legislator in any state in the US could instantly set these people up for life in just one single monthly paycheck. And since they actually have direct experience of the suffering they go though as perpetually unemployable, they have the motivation and the political will to do the job that congress is too politically lazy to do.

Right now our current congress is a sick joke. For all intents and purposes it’s a farce. Not only they lack any real political willpower, they’re completely and utterly spineless. The mere thought of money will make any congressman be more beholden to their corporate lobbyists to their constituents. The only way to solve our nation’s problems is for people to run for public office. I don’t care if you don’t have a law degree, I don’t care if you’re no wealthy. Just a US citizenship and if you’re old enough and you should be able to run for office.

Voting didn't change anything, nor is donating, or simple political involvement. The ultimate solution to a politically weak Congress and America is that the people take over their legislatures via direct campaign for public office. The 2014 elections is just under two years away, so why not get started now?

[clydefrand]

1. very good reason:

M O N E Y. Plus, most 'ordinary' people are probably to honest to ever win an election.

[Warpy]

2. Nobody wakes up one morning and decides to run for Congress

unless he's very, very rich. Most people are approached by captains of local industry, usually after they've served a term or five in local or state office.

If you're well enough off, you can decide to run for local or state office. You have to be filthy rich to run for national office unless you start off with a lot of backers who expect you to vote their way. And if you don't, they'll back somebody else.

[datasuspect]

3. modern politicians are degenerates

sociopathic, sick, twisted, and corrupt to the core.

[Deep13]

4. They can't afford it and they don't know how.

They don't know how to live in a fishbowl where the slightest public misstep can sink them. They don't know hope to raise money. If they do raise money we are back to corporate whoredom.

[MineralMan]

5. It's actually very easy to run for Congress.

Typically, there are many names on the ballot, at least where I live. All that is required is to submit some papers, some signatures of people who agree that you should run and paying a fee. The fee can be waived if you declare poverty.

The thing is that running for office is different that getting elected. In almost every case, a candidate supported by either the Democratic or Republican Party wins. Exceptions are rare at the Congressional level.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

6. "History has tried to teach us that we can't have good government under politicians.

"History has tried to teach us that we can't have good government under politicians. Now, to go and stick one at the very head of government couldn't be wise." Mark Twain

[Drunken Irishman]

7. Guys like Joe the Plumber?

[leftstreet]

8. Why not?

I bet he knows the price of a gallon of milk. Whereas the billionaires with chauffeurs and tailors and lobbyist friends probably don't.

[Drunken Irishman]

12. Yeah...that's what I care about.

"Do you know the price of milk?"

"Yeah!"

"You've got my vote!"

Thank God Ohio voters didn't think that way or he would've defeated Marcy Kaptur - someone who's been in Congress longer than I've been alive ... but is actually a good person.

Yeesh.

[leftstreet]

14. If you don't worry about the cost of living, you must be a 1%er n/t

[Drunken Irishman]

15. If you want 'average Joe's' running Congress, you must be a tea-partier.

[Marrah_G]

9. Money

[patrice]

10. I used to support this until very recently. Lately I'm becoming concerned about how woefully

ir-responsible in their thinking skills, or lazy, or maybe even stupid and, hence, biased so many people are.

Not that one shouldn't occupy a certain position/set of principles, but that should be done with as few blind assumptions as possible and in order to do that it is necessary to identify the context of otherness/differences/diversity in which you occupy your own principles, so you can legitimately admit your biases, identify WHY you hold them and ***HENCE*** call upon others to do the same. How many people do that? Not many at all and that FACT has consequences.

For example, if you are/were LGBT, would you like to turn your RIGHTS over to the kind of people who run my state, Kansas?

[Recursion]

11. I used to have an idea of running the House like the Federal Jury system

If you're a registered voter, your name goes in the jar, and every district picks one person at random every two years to go to DC. Only it has to be harder to get out of than jury duty: If you're picked, you go. Got to work? Tough shit. The country needs you. Get in the van.

Could it really be worse than the yahoos we get right now?

[MineralMan]

13. Yup. I had the same idea.

Representative government by legislators selected by lot. I doubt it would be any worse, really.

I used to propose that concept regularly, but have stopped. We already appear to have a random selection in Congress, with a full complement of morons and geniuses. Still, the selection by lot might inject some common sense into the process, although that's a vanishingly rare commodity these days.