It's time to change how Congress works

In a recent desperate attempt to come up with some ideas on how to clean up Congress and improve on how Congress works these days, it occurred to me that the best course of action may be to prevent our state’s representatives and senators from ever setting foot in Washington, D.C. - ever.

Why send our state’s representatives and senators to Washington, D.C. these days when they can attend all of their committee meetings and large group meetings via Zoom?

Better for our state’s representatives and senators to stay in Kansas where their constituents can keep a better eye on them - by also viewing all of the Zoom Congressional meetings with them in the same room.

I am talking about real transparency. I think it would be a real eye-opener for a lot of constituents.

It wasn’t so long ago (30 to 40 years ago) that our state’s representatives and senators went to Congress to work for us one day and then they stayed there week after week until Congress went on recess or holiday, or until some important decisions were hammered out.

But nowadays, our state’s representatives and senators want to jet back home most weekends and then jet back to Washington, D.C.

They really are back home just as much as they are in Washington, D.C. these days for short work weeks. So, I ask, why send them there at all?

When it looks like party politics is getting in the way of important legislation, then it’s time to decrease the party’s stranglehold on how our state’s representatives and senators vote in Congress.

When it looks like outside influencers are having too much success swaying votes, then it’s time to decrease lobbyists’ accessibility to our state’s representatives and senators.

When it looks like Congress is not pushing back against some crazy spending initiatives of the adminstration, then it’s time for constituents to have more and better access to their representatives and senators.

I don’t know a better way to remind our Congresspeople who they are working for - than to keep them in Kansas so we can watch them do their Zoom meetings.

Why is it that so many of our state’s representatives and senators go to Congress and get mega-rich? Maybe we could better understand this if Washington, D.C. stopped being the party-central for all of the Congressional work. 

Of course, Congressional term limits must be implemented immediately, too.