A good case can be made that U.S. legislators no longer represent their voters and that our two-party system is only one-party because not only do banks own Congress as my senator Dick Durbin so honestly said, but pay to play politics owns Congress on all legislative matters. Voters like me, learned in the 2008 election that a change-President can’t make a dent on the corrupt power that owns Washington. So even when the citizens demand change to greatly reduce the corruption, they have little power to make it happen compared to the vast corrupters’ power.

Districts have been gerrymandered so 85 percent of incumbents feel safe from any real challenge. Even when citizens want to remove money as the primary means of getting elected, incumbents control any real chance for a constitutional convention because of free speech requirements. We have allowed our representatives to disenfranchise us from ourselves. The people, whom our constitution says hold the real power, have given it away. Even though there are a handful of congress critters who have not been corrupted, because the disease is so wide spread, all current ones need to be fired so we can start over.

Hey that is not such a bad idea. We could fire all of them- permanently! Before you dismiss me as a complete impractical crackpot, stay with me as we explore the idea a little further.

What I’m going to lay out in brief, crude and elementary form may seem far out and impossible to accomplish. I don’t think it has to be if we envision the capabilities we have before us. Technically it is feasible. Politically it presents a monumental challenge. If the proposal has enough credibility and creates enough excitement, it could be doable.

I’ve toyed with the idea briefly in my mind from time to time. A Seminal post by ekunin on FDL Representative Democracy Doesn’t Work Anymore, made me give more serious thought to my concept.

Put simply, we don’t need politically elected representatives to vote for us if we all could vote for ourselves. A reversion to town hall government updated through technology. Our representatives would all be fired. We would select from every state Bill-Developer Assistants (BDAs) who would craft and write legislation we request. We could select them in the same way we would vote on legislation- Internet voting. More on their role later.

Now if you already don’t think I’m crazy, you do now because of electronic election fraud that has already happened in Ohio and other states. If a fraud-proof, electronic system can’t be devised, I am crazy. I believe that we have the technology or can develop it, to build one that is fraud-proof. For example, every voter would provide a thumb print or eyeball to prove who they are and that they are a qualified voter. That can be done at home or in public locations. All votes could be videotaped for followup if any fraud is suspected. Or some technology geek can come up with something even more fraud-proof than I can conceive.

Just as we would use the same fraud-proof system to vote on the final bills, we can use it to tell our BDAs how we feel as the proposed bills wend their way into a final product. Lobbyists will have to tell us, not pay us or wine and dine us, their positions through the same websites we use. Any broadcast or print ads or attempts to influence voters on any specific bill would be prohibited. I’m not a legal expert, but if they have the same access to make their opinions known as any citizen, how can they claim we are violating free speech. We couldn’t prevent corporations, labor unions and other groups to use their own sites to make their case. Voters would have the choice of using those sites or not.

Internet ads could be allowed if the user has the choice to watch or ignore. If we legally can’t ban the ads, then we can encourage citizens to ignore them because straight, honest information is available online. Corporations don’t have enough money to buy all of us which they can do so easily and cheaply with our current congress critters and our money election system. Think of how cheap it is for them to craft and own legislation now in comparison to the trillions they make.

Websites for each bill would provide ample information for voters in words devoid of propaganda and emotional appeals. BDAs won’t represent parties or ideologies because they are assistants elected to represent all and all BDAs would receive the same salary except for bill leaders who will receive bonuses when work is complete. Voters would decide the bonus amounts based on the importance and excellence of the bill. The BDAs would have subordinates to help them with their work. We would have BDAs assigned to watch for the devil in the details to prevent surprises.

We would have to develop a way to keep the BDAs from being corrupted so that the lobbyists will have to use facts and logic to convince them of how their proposals will be best for Americans as a country, not just a state or region. We could develop college certification or specialty colleges to train the BDAs. We could give the BDAs similar status of our appeals court and justices of the supreme court in their goal of being free of prejudice and deciding on facts and logic to the greatest extent possible. Laws would have to be enacted to provide penalties for illegal access or attempts to influence as now exists for judges.

If the BDAs are selected by state in proportion to population, the argument will be made that urban will dominate rural which our present House-Senate system is supposed to equalize.

With modern communication, the significant differences are disappearing. Today, crazies can be found in both the country and city in fairly equal numbers. True, there is a greater concentration of crazies in six southern states, but if they can’t own BDAs like they own the congress critters, they will just have to learn to be responsible for educating themselves and not blindly rely on their critters.

There are two areas, and I am sure others I have missed, which I don’t have a good answer for yet. The first is classified information and operations. Even though my proposed new system is based on full transparency, there would be military and intelligence operations that require secrecy to be successfully carried out. My proposal would have to insist on a drastic reduction in using classification and it would have to be used when only absolutely essential and could not be used for political purposes. That’s the way it is supposed to be now and we all know how that is working out. The BDAs would have to be relied on as the critters are now to determine need for funds and secrecy or a citizens panel could be designated for just that purpose. Since the BDAs are not beholden to the states once elected, decisions should be better than our present system. While some aspects of new weapon systems would need to be classified, developing a totally secret system would just not be feasible.

The second is distributing federal money to states through a prioritized system. If the federal government has too much power deciding distribution, the states will be too powerless and would have to resort to even heavier taxation of their residents. Maybe there has to be a percentage distribution based on population and when situations occur where a need is greater in a small population state or even large one, the national voters would have to decide whether or not to assist them.

I realize this is a new paradigm in how our nation would function. It no doubt has many flaws. It should be better than how we operate now. Would appreciate your criticism and ideas if you think it has any merit.