Cherokee38 Loc: Atlanta

From the amount of money being spent to be elected, here is a simpler way.

Simply put a dollar figure on the office, say75 million. First one to pay that amount is in the office. Forget about representing people and their needs. How's that for a simple solution? I am tired of hearing my opponent has outraised me by 39 million. Please send money immediately so I don't lose my office.

ldsuttonjr Loc: ShangriLa

Cherokee: You can thank Woodrow Wilson for changing the Constitution with the 17th amendment; which took the Senators away from the States Congresses and made the position a national v**e every six years. States lost tremendous power against the Federal government in that move in 1913. But then again Wison was a classic socialist! Like you say tremendous amounts of money are wasted on such e******ns!

Smedley_buzkill

Before the 17th Amendment there was no such thing as a Senator staying in Washington for 20, 30, or 40 years, because the state legislatures would not stand for it.
Here is a list of the longest serving Senators. (Including time served as Representatives in some cases.) One table is Senate time only. You will notice almost every single one was after 1913.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_members_of_the_United_States_Congress_by_longevity_of_service

FallenOak Loc: St George Utah

I remember a Sci-Fi story I read years ago and the President was chosen by a computer program. The questions were about history, law, and what else I don’t remember but I always thought that would be a unique way to elect the President. If the questions were about US History, US Law, and current problems facing the nation we would at least have a person who was knowledgeable about our nation. The test should be at least five days of eight hours a day with many repeated questions to get a good reading on the knowledge and beliefs of each candidate. We would maybe have a person who had the good of the nation as the reason for running. All people who wished to run should be able to sign up for the test. The test could be graded by the computer also leaving mostly personal preferences out of the result. Don’t know if that would be better but it certainly couldn’t be worse than the present crop of people we are choosing from. It could even be tried for Representatives and Senators. We must have computer technology now that could make at least as intelligent a choice as our v****g public.