[schwit]

There's a number of little things that would make lobbying less effective.

- Move legislators back to their home district

- Term limits

- Permit them to only accept contributions from registered voters in their district

- repeal the 17th amendment

[twoodfin]

Congratulations, you've empowered the permanent bureaucracy.

[rafcavallaro]

He said "term limits" not "remove all power from elected officials." We already have what you call a "permanent bureaucracy" - it's called the civil service. It executes orders from elected officials - the President, cabinet officers, and every civil servant's paycheck is dependent on the good will of Congress.

Limiting the influence of lobbyist's campaign contributions will empower ordinary citizens since elected officials will be more dependent on pleasing us to get elected rather than pleasing large donors so they can use large donor money to run media campaigns to get elected. Reducing the influence of large campaign donors will not give the civil service any more power than it has now.

[r00fus]

The civil service is corrupt along with staffers and legislators themselves.

The problem is the revolving door between industry and government... the promise of being able to sacrifice yourself politically translating directly into a cushy job in industry that's gained billions by the malfeasance... high profile examples are legion: Dick Cheney, Dick Gephardt, Pat Toomey, and (more timely) Chris Dodd.

I don't know the best solution but an airgap of related employment (say, 2 years) would probably slow this process down.