[visarga]

If you really want money out of politics then you replace all of them with sortition (assemblies of the people). They are representative, being drawn at random, for the whole population and they are not elected, so they don't need to campaign. Similar to politicians, they need to be supported by experts and advisors in the specific topic they are working on. I'd rather trust a group of random people deliberating than a bunch of professional liars. Sortition is a way for people to participate in democracy more than voting once every couple of years and posting on FB.

[noir_lord]

My approach is different, two houses (assemblies) one elected and one via sortition.

Elected can propose and pass but sortition house can block.

Basically the commons/lords setup but with the lord's replaced with random people.

That way the politicians answer directly to the people (or a random sample) of them.

[brigandish]

I have been thinking exactly the same. I now have to wonder if you work at Facebook and have "read my mind" via my likes… ;-)

I been musing on whether there should be some small barriers to joining, as there is in jury service - perhaps the elected get to oppose a certain number of candidates, or they must pass a civics/governance test first so at least they've some technical knowledge going in. I can see that being twisted into something bad though.

Much as I dislike the Lords Spiritual in the current system, I wonder if the sortition should embrace it and be a "tulip farm" of certain interest groups e.g. 20 each for religion, business, justice, commoners etc, as then there's a definite base of understanding in important areas.

However it would be arranged it'd be hard for it to be worse than having the Lords full of lords though.