I had the feeling reading this that I was not fully penetrating your "model" (I checked for synonyms, an online tool I've got in the habit of using frequently, but I wasn't really satisfied with any of them: "framework" was the only plausible alternative.) Accepting that term, it is certainly an ethical model. Also, a linguistic model: the critique of the word, freedom--its common use, its proper philosophical use, and its deliberately abusive use. (The "Ministry of Truth" in Orwell's 1984 came to mind.)
My context in reading serious discourse such as this is the question: "What is to be done?", which unpacks to 1. "What is the proper goal?" or "What are the proper goals, in order of importance?" and 2. "What are the best means to achieve the goal or goals?"
This paragraph of yours caught my attention: "To make voting a viable, practical exercise, and not merely a rite performed to maintain an undemocratic (from my perspective) polyarchy, we need to transform voting into a participatory selection process where people can determine whom they want to be their spokesman instead of representatives decide they should be representatives. Voting reform needs to entail not just ballot access but true reform where caucuses have no predetermined candidate and districts are shaped not by legislatures, but by interest groups. And all political fundraising MUST STOP. A candidate who asks for money is not a candidate I would select were there any others to select from."
It's occurred to me that analysis of political process can be built around two words: information and money. Information breaks in two parts: information (or disinformation) flowing to the voter, and information flowing from the voters regarding their choices. Money is essential to generate the flow of information to the voters, but also is central to all the corruption of the political system. (In the U.S. the corruption was profoundly set by the Supreme Court’s Abominable Trifecta: Buckley(1976), Belotti(1978) and Citizens United(2010), which wiped out over a century of reform regarding money in American politics, giving us the declarations that corporations have citizen rights, that money is protected political speech, and that, while explicit quid pro quo (stupid bribery) is illegal, implicit quid pro quo (smart bribery) is just fine.
Thom Hartmann in "The Hidden History of American Oligarchy" lists three enabling conditions for establishment of Oligarchy: 1. Corrupt the judicial process. 2. Make bribery legal. and 3. Muzzle journalism. Lewis Powell, a tobacco attorney in 1971, wrote in that year a Confidential Memorandum to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce entitled "Attack on Free Enterprise System" outlining a plan to reverse the trend toward democracy in America. In the same year Nixon appointed him to the Supreme Court. He held with the majority votes in both Buckley and Belotti, writing the majority opinion in Buckley. Corruption of the judiciary was a pre-condition for the Abominable Trifecta. The elimination of anti-monopoly legislation and the subsequent concentration of media ownership accomplished the relative muzzling of American journalism. The remaining step from Oligarchy to Tyranny is the control of the Executive branch by the Oligarchy, which may be accomplished in the coming Presidential Election if we can't stop it.
The ”participatory selection process” will require Ranked Choice Voting (RCV), eliminating the voter’s dilemma and the subsequent spoiler effect, and removing the protective shield of the Democratic/Republican Duopoly so that third party members and independent candidates may commonly be elected. The Constitution gives Congress the power to legislate the “Manner” of federal elections within the states, so it could mandate RCV in all future federal elections. This will probably require organized pressure from the American citizenry since the power of incumbency favoring the current member of Congress disappears with RCV. This vote will require statesmanship going against personal interest. In the context of RCV in federal elections, state parties will probably adopt RCV in state primary elections to make independent candidates less likely.
some of your questions I think express my opinion in next article.
I think RCV is a start, but I think we still face a diificult problem. Coaltions to form majority parties once elected. I know how that's how most other democracies operate. But our nation-under the first few legislatures didn't have parties. By the end of Washington's (2nd) term they did. But (and this may be false, you can check me if I'm wrong) there was not a majority-minority concept to determine leadership. When issues were discussed they all did so. Committees were formed by the members when they needed one and the house speaker was I believe, selected not by party. The government could be more effective if congress had the guts to eliminate parties in its midst and in allowing any national candidate to run on any party platform, I don't think they have. Eventually a majority needs to vote to win passage, but ending parties should make members more directly involved with their voters and not their parties. Also voters couldn't just vote by party line but would need to be more involved in determining what their candidate stood for. I think G.W. was right in his farewell address. (very loose paraphrase) "democracy ends when parties become dominant and divide people from understanding issues for themselves"
p.s.. can i post your reply as a guest post.? I get very few responses even though my readership has doubled in jan. So I don't know how many see your thoughtful replies.
You wrote: "Eventually a majority needs to vote to win passage, but ending parties should make members more directly involved with their voters and not their parties. Also voters couldn't just vote by party line but would need to be more involved in determining what their candidate stood for."
Rereading this brought to mind the advantages of a legislation-mandated comprehensive switch to voting only by mail (with prepaid postage). I previously mentioned eliminating voter suppression. This could eliminate individual pre-registration with an automatic universal registration requiring no voter effort but enabling greater quality control of the voter list. And legislation could be passed that Federally standardizes any voter disqualification, such as current incarceration for a criminal conviction (although some European countries allow inmates to vote: something for us to consider.) The "need to be more involved in determining what their candidate stood for" presupposes the advantage of lengthy ballot perusal and study at home, and a more extensive ballot allowing the candidate to outline his positions and refer to an online resource for more in-depth information. Also, as previously mentioned, RCV with comprehensive voting exclusively by mail would facilitate having many candidates and might eliminate the need for a primary.
I think the simplest effective change to stifle the malignant partisanship would be to outlaw the "Hastert Rule" (actually initiated by Newt Gingrich, Dennis Hastert's predecessor). The rule is that bills that cannot be passed with just the votes of the majority party will not be brought to vote. Bipartisan passage is eliminated, and the minority party is reduced to irrelevance. This is totally toxic and should be permanently banned from future use.
I queried my laptop about leaders in both houses and committee heads in both houses and got these results:
As far as committee heads being from the majority party, the House Progressive Republicans established the custom in 1910. It was called the Cannon Revolt, named after the Speaker, Joseph Cannon. (The revolt was against his power.) As far as the Senate, the Democrats established the tradition in 1835. When the Whigs took the majority in 1841, they maintained it.
The House tradition that the Speaker would be from the majority party was established by the Democrats in 1850. As far as the Senate, I copied the entire "Bing" response:
"The custom of the majority party in the Senate providing the Senate Majority Leader was established in 1913. John Kern, a Democrat from Indiana, was elected as the first Senate Majority Leader in 1913. The position of Senate Majority Leader was created to help manage the Senate’s legislative business and to serve as the chief spokesperson for the majority party in the Senate . The practice of electing majority and minority floor leaders began in the early 1920s. Joseph Robinson, a Democrat from Arkansas, who served as the Majority Leader in the 1920s and 1930s, is credited with giving the position its modern form. Robinson expanded the functions of Senate floor leadership, organized public relations efforts, served as the primary intermediary between his Senate party and the president and House leaders, managed the organization of his Senate party, managed floor activities and scheduling, and often provided policy leadership by building coalitions for or against legislation. In short, he was the focal point for his party’s collective efforts to achieve its electoral and policy goals "
I came across the fact that the 1856 process for getting a House Speaker was as contentious as this year's Republican clown show. Bing says:
"In 1856, the United States House of Representatives faced a contentious struggle to elect a Speaker of the House. The election took place in a politically charged climate, with sectional conflicts over slavery and immigration. Nathaniel Banks, a Republican Representative, was eventually elected as the Speaker of the House after 133 ballots over the course of two months. The situation was further complicated by the fact that Banks was anti-slavery and part of the “Know Nothing” Party, while a separate majority of his Republican colleagues were still interested in expanding slavery in the 1850s"
A system of voter determined candidates such as you describe seems to me to require a relaxation of a constant, assumed regarding RCV—the assumption that the voter will only have to choose among a handful of candidates as a matter of practicality. This seems to assume that the voter is voting at a polling place where time in the voting booth is limited, precluding very many candidates to choose from. A national voter registry of voters, enabling a comprehensive vote-by-mail, eliminates the time constraint. Vote-by-mail seems to be a necessary precondition for having very many candidates. (It also happens to DESTROY voter suppression!) Perhaps each candidate could write a paragraph describing his or her positions and include a website for voters seeking more information. Obviously impractical for polling place voting, voting at home could be a leisurely process, perhaps stretching over weeks of deliberation. How many candidates would be practical in this circumstance? More than five or six, but I’m guessing less than a hundred. That number could be tailored by the stringency of the requirement for the candidate to be allowed ballot access: the higher the number of names required for a successful ballot access petition, the lower the number of names on the ballot. If, in retrospect, there were too many for this election, raise the ballot petition minimum number for the next election. Ballots designed for voting at polling places often list candidates in random order to avoid an “alphabetic bias”: a tendency to choose the first. In the leisure of home voting, with many candidates to choose from, random order would be a nuisance and alphabetic order preferred. Raising the number of names allowed on the ballot seems to obviate the need for a separate primary, a great simplification.
“districts are shaped not by legislatures, but by interest groups” brings gerrymandering to mind—districts drawn by partisan legislators to favor one “interest group” over another via “packing” and “cracking”. (“Crack” to spread them into separate districts where they will lose, or if there are too many of them to be denied any representation, “pack” them into one district so they will have only one representative, not two.) Reform makes creation of districts with maximal compaction the standard response, but the distribution of “interest groups” may be such that maximally fair representation would require oddly shaped “anti-gerrymandered” districts—something that will never be done. How can maximally fair representation then be accomplished? Consider multi-winner districts encompassing many of the current smaller districts. These are currently prohibited by Federal law, because with our inadequate one-choice-only plurality voting system multi-winner districts would likely result in the majority swamping all the positions. But that danger is avoided with RCV. With RCV then, the prohibition against multi-winner districts should be removed.
RCV voting in multi-winner districts is the same as in single winner districts, but tallying in the instant runoffs is more complicated, which I will explain. For the single winner district an absolute majority is ½ the votes + 1. For two winners this standard obviously doesn’t work. For two winners the “absolute majority” required of each is 1/3 the votes + 1. (There are not enough remaining votes to produce a third winner.) For three winners, it is ¼ the votes + 1. In general, for n winners, it is 1/(n+1)+1. Another modification in tallying is required. The surpluses held by the first winners over the necessary 1/(n+1)+1 would make it impossible for later winners to attain the necessary 1/(n+1)+1, so the first winners’ surpluses must be reassigned among the remaining candidates based proportionately on the second choices on their ballots. This will allow n winners who have each attained 1/(n+1)+1 votes. For this to work, the sum of all their votes must obviously not be greater than the sum of all the voters. For n = 2, 2*[(1/3+1)] = 2/3+2. For n = 3, 3*[(1/4+1)] = ¾+3. … For n winners, the sum is n/(n+1)+n: by inspection for any n, a fraction less than 1.
The standard description of RCV for multi-winner district has states with many Representatives divided into multiple super-districts rather than one, so the number of winners is never more than five. California currently has 52 Representatives in Congress, so it would have 11 super-districts. But we previously discussed allowing many candidates where the voting was universally done by mail to make it practical. Perhaps 52 winners, as with California, would still be too cumbersome and California would be divided into 2 or 3 super-districts.
Someone has suggested that the over-representation in lowly populated states like Wyoming, in comparison with highly populated states like California is an issue that could be addressed by assigning Representatives who represent more voters multiple votes. Maybe an unworkable idea, but I thought I’d mention it.
“all political fundraising MUST STOP”. This requires an overthrow of what I have called the Abominable Trifecta of Buckley, Belloti, and Citizens United. When a future election makes that possible, I hope to see Congress enact that legislation (and use their authority under Article III of the Constitution to tell the Supreme Court, “Hands off this legislation! Congress declares it out of your jurisdiction.”) While they are at it, judicial reform is needed. Since they are obviously political, eliminate lifetime appointments. Fifteen years seems appropriate to me. And make SCOTUS accountable to an independent Standing Committee. (I learned recently that “Standing” as opposed to “Special” implies a Committee’s time of existence is not limited.)
If even political donations of the size that ordinary people might give is to be eliminated, a mechanism for the costs of campaigning will have to be provided by some government process. Putting a strict limit on the size to some modest total that cumulatively would cover the expenses but not create the possibility of implicit quid pro quos seems more practical to me. And it provides the citizen an opportunity to express himself without being abusive. Perhaps money in modest amounts may be regarded as speech, if modest enough not to be taken as an attempt for special favors.
We need to reverse the benign (actually, NOT benign) neglect of anti-monopoly regulation, particularly regarding media. It will not be possible to suddenly return to the decentralized situation that existed decades ago, but a course needs to be determined to return to something like that, gradually but relentlessly. And the growth of a permanent monied aristocracy must be reversed. Reverse the tax cuts for the super-wealthy made by Reagan, G.W. Bush, and Trump, retaining the sops for ordinary people included to make them politically palatable. Restore weakened provisions regarding estate taxes. Eliminate the zeroing out of capital gains upon death. Make the heirs responsible for those taxes. Make income tax steeply progressive and eliminate all sales taxes which are retrogressive.
Ken,
I had the feeling reading this that I was not fully penetrating your "model" (I checked for synonyms, an online tool I've got in the habit of using frequently, but I wasn't really satisfied with any of them: "framework" was the only plausible alternative.) Accepting that term, it is certainly an ethical model. Also, a linguistic model: the critique of the word, freedom--its common use, its proper philosophical use, and its deliberately abusive use. (The "Ministry of Truth" in Orwell's 1984 came to mind.)
My context in reading serious discourse such as this is the question: "What is to be done?", which unpacks to 1. "What is the proper goal?" or "What are the proper goals, in order of importance?" and 2. "What are the best means to achieve the goal or goals?"
This paragraph of yours caught my attention: "To make voting a viable, practical exercise, and not merely a rite performed to maintain an undemocratic (from my perspective) polyarchy, we need to transform voting into a participatory selection process where people can determine whom they want to be their spokesman instead of representatives decide they should be representatives. Voting reform needs to entail not just ballot access but true reform where caucuses have no predetermined candidate and districts are shaped not by legislatures, but by interest groups. And all political fundraising MUST STOP. A candidate who asks for money is not a candidate I would select were there any others to select from."
It's occurred to me that analysis of political process can be built around two words: information and money. Information breaks in two parts: information (or disinformation) flowing to the voter, and information flowing from the voters regarding their choices. Money is essential to generate the flow of information to the voters, but also is central to all the corruption of the political system. (In the U.S. the corruption was profoundly set by the Supreme Court’s Abominable Trifecta: Buckley(1976), Belotti(1978) and Citizens United(2010), which wiped out over a century of reform regarding money in American politics, giving us the declarations that corporations have citizen rights, that money is protected political speech, and that, while explicit quid pro quo (stupid bribery) is illegal, implicit quid pro quo (smart bribery) is just fine.
Thom Hartmann in "The Hidden History of American Oligarchy" lists three enabling conditions for establishment of Oligarchy: 1. Corrupt the judicial process. 2. Make bribery legal. and 3. Muzzle journalism. Lewis Powell, a tobacco attorney in 1971, wrote in that year a Confidential Memorandum to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce entitled "Attack on Free Enterprise System" outlining a plan to reverse the trend toward democracy in America. In the same year Nixon appointed him to the Supreme Court. He held with the majority votes in both Buckley and Belotti, writing the majority opinion in Buckley. Corruption of the judiciary was a pre-condition for the Abominable Trifecta. The elimination of anti-monopoly legislation and the subsequent concentration of media ownership accomplished the relative muzzling of American journalism. The remaining step from Oligarchy to Tyranny is the control of the Executive branch by the Oligarchy, which may be accomplished in the coming Presidential Election if we can't stop it.
The ”participatory selection process” will require Ranked Choice Voting (RCV), eliminating the voter’s dilemma and the subsequent spoiler effect, and removing the protective shield of the Democratic/Republican Duopoly so that third party members and independent candidates may commonly be elected. The Constitution gives Congress the power to legislate the “Manner” of federal elections within the states, so it could mandate RCV in all future federal elections. This will probably require organized pressure from the American citizenry since the power of incumbency favoring the current member of Congress disappears with RCV. This vote will require statesmanship going against personal interest. In the context of RCV in federal elections, state parties will probably adopt RCV in state primary elections to make independent candidates less likely.
much to think about.
some of your questions I think express my opinion in next article.
I think RCV is a start, but I think we still face a diificult problem. Coaltions to form majority parties once elected. I know how that's how most other democracies operate. But our nation-under the first few legislatures didn't have parties. By the end of Washington's (2nd) term they did. But (and this may be false, you can check me if I'm wrong) there was not a majority-minority concept to determine leadership. When issues were discussed they all did so. Committees were formed by the members when they needed one and the house speaker was I believe, selected not by party. The government could be more effective if congress had the guts to eliminate parties in its midst and in allowing any national candidate to run on any party platform, I don't think they have. Eventually a majority needs to vote to win passage, but ending parties should make members more directly involved with their voters and not their parties. Also voters couldn't just vote by party line but would need to be more involved in determining what their candidate stood for. I think G.W. was right in his farewell address. (very loose paraphrase) "democracy ends when parties become dominant and divide people from understanding issues for themselves"
p.s.. can i post your reply as a guest post.? I get very few responses even though my readership has doubled in jan. So I don't know how many see your thoughtful replies.
Yes, thank you.
You wrote: "Eventually a majority needs to vote to win passage, but ending parties should make members more directly involved with their voters and not their parties. Also voters couldn't just vote by party line but would need to be more involved in determining what their candidate stood for."
Rereading this brought to mind the advantages of a legislation-mandated comprehensive switch to voting only by mail (with prepaid postage). I previously mentioned eliminating voter suppression. This could eliminate individual pre-registration with an automatic universal registration requiring no voter effort but enabling greater quality control of the voter list. And legislation could be passed that Federally standardizes any voter disqualification, such as current incarceration for a criminal conviction (although some European countries allow inmates to vote: something for us to consider.) The "need to be more involved in determining what their candidate stood for" presupposes the advantage of lengthy ballot perusal and study at home, and a more extensive ballot allowing the candidate to outline his positions and refer to an online resource for more in-depth information. Also, as previously mentioned, RCV with comprehensive voting exclusively by mail would facilitate having many candidates and might eliminate the need for a primary.
I think the simplest effective change to stifle the malignant partisanship would be to outlaw the "Hastert Rule" (actually initiated by Newt Gingrich, Dennis Hastert's predecessor). The rule is that bills that cannot be passed with just the votes of the majority party will not be brought to vote. Bipartisan passage is eliminated, and the minority party is reduced to irrelevance. This is totally toxic and should be permanently banned from future use.
I queried my laptop about leaders in both houses and committee heads in both houses and got these results:
As far as committee heads being from the majority party, the House Progressive Republicans established the custom in 1910. It was called the Cannon Revolt, named after the Speaker, Joseph Cannon. (The revolt was against his power.) As far as the Senate, the Democrats established the tradition in 1835. When the Whigs took the majority in 1841, they maintained it.
The House tradition that the Speaker would be from the majority party was established by the Democrats in 1850. As far as the Senate, I copied the entire "Bing" response:
"The custom of the majority party in the Senate providing the Senate Majority Leader was established in 1913. John Kern, a Democrat from Indiana, was elected as the first Senate Majority Leader in 1913. The position of Senate Majority Leader was created to help manage the Senate’s legislative business and to serve as the chief spokesperson for the majority party in the Senate . The practice of electing majority and minority floor leaders began in the early 1920s. Joseph Robinson, a Democrat from Arkansas, who served as the Majority Leader in the 1920s and 1930s, is credited with giving the position its modern form. Robinson expanded the functions of Senate floor leadership, organized public relations efforts, served as the primary intermediary between his Senate party and the president and House leaders, managed the organization of his Senate party, managed floor activities and scheduling, and often provided policy leadership by building coalitions for or against legislation. In short, he was the focal point for his party’s collective efforts to achieve its electoral and policy goals "
I came across the fact that the 1856 process for getting a House Speaker was as contentious as this year's Republican clown show. Bing says:
"In 1856, the United States House of Representatives faced a contentious struggle to elect a Speaker of the House. The election took place in a politically charged climate, with sectional conflicts over slavery and immigration. Nathaniel Banks, a Republican Representative, was eventually elected as the Speaker of the House after 133 ballots over the course of two months. The situation was further complicated by the fact that Banks was anti-slavery and part of the “Know Nothing” Party, while a separate majority of his Republican colleagues were still interested in expanding slavery in the 1850s"
Part 2, Continuing (comment size is limited):
A system of voter determined candidates such as you describe seems to me to require a relaxation of a constant, assumed regarding RCV—the assumption that the voter will only have to choose among a handful of candidates as a matter of practicality. This seems to assume that the voter is voting at a polling place where time in the voting booth is limited, precluding very many candidates to choose from. A national voter registry of voters, enabling a comprehensive vote-by-mail, eliminates the time constraint. Vote-by-mail seems to be a necessary precondition for having very many candidates. (It also happens to DESTROY voter suppression!) Perhaps each candidate could write a paragraph describing his or her positions and include a website for voters seeking more information. Obviously impractical for polling place voting, voting at home could be a leisurely process, perhaps stretching over weeks of deliberation. How many candidates would be practical in this circumstance? More than five or six, but I’m guessing less than a hundred. That number could be tailored by the stringency of the requirement for the candidate to be allowed ballot access: the higher the number of names required for a successful ballot access petition, the lower the number of names on the ballot. If, in retrospect, there were too many for this election, raise the ballot petition minimum number for the next election. Ballots designed for voting at polling places often list candidates in random order to avoid an “alphabetic bias”: a tendency to choose the first. In the leisure of home voting, with many candidates to choose from, random order would be a nuisance and alphabetic order preferred. Raising the number of names allowed on the ballot seems to obviate the need for a separate primary, a great simplification.
“districts are shaped not by legislatures, but by interest groups” brings gerrymandering to mind—districts drawn by partisan legislators to favor one “interest group” over another via “packing” and “cracking”. (“Crack” to spread them into separate districts where they will lose, or if there are too many of them to be denied any representation, “pack” them into one district so they will have only one representative, not two.) Reform makes creation of districts with maximal compaction the standard response, but the distribution of “interest groups” may be such that maximally fair representation would require oddly shaped “anti-gerrymandered” districts—something that will never be done. How can maximally fair representation then be accomplished? Consider multi-winner districts encompassing many of the current smaller districts. These are currently prohibited by Federal law, because with our inadequate one-choice-only plurality voting system multi-winner districts would likely result in the majority swamping all the positions. But that danger is avoided with RCV. With RCV then, the prohibition against multi-winner districts should be removed.
RCV voting in multi-winner districts is the same as in single winner districts, but tallying in the instant runoffs is more complicated, which I will explain. For the single winner district an absolute majority is ½ the votes + 1. For two winners this standard obviously doesn’t work. For two winners the “absolute majority” required of each is 1/3 the votes + 1. (There are not enough remaining votes to produce a third winner.) For three winners, it is ¼ the votes + 1. In general, for n winners, it is 1/(n+1)+1. Another modification in tallying is required. The surpluses held by the first winners over the necessary 1/(n+1)+1 would make it impossible for later winners to attain the necessary 1/(n+1)+1, so the first winners’ surpluses must be reassigned among the remaining candidates based proportionately on the second choices on their ballots. This will allow n winners who have each attained 1/(n+1)+1 votes. For this to work, the sum of all their votes must obviously not be greater than the sum of all the voters. For n = 2, 2*[(1/3+1)] = 2/3+2. For n = 3, 3*[(1/4+1)] = ¾+3. … For n winners, the sum is n/(n+1)+n: by inspection for any n, a fraction less than 1.
The standard description of RCV for multi-winner district has states with many Representatives divided into multiple super-districts rather than one, so the number of winners is never more than five. California currently has 52 Representatives in Congress, so it would have 11 super-districts. But we previously discussed allowing many candidates where the voting was universally done by mail to make it practical. Perhaps 52 winners, as with California, would still be too cumbersome and California would be divided into 2 or 3 super-districts.
Someone has suggested that the over-representation in lowly populated states like Wyoming, in comparison with highly populated states like California is an issue that could be addressed by assigning Representatives who represent more voters multiple votes. Maybe an unworkable idea, but I thought I’d mention it.
“all political fundraising MUST STOP”. This requires an overthrow of what I have called the Abominable Trifecta of Buckley, Belloti, and Citizens United. When a future election makes that possible, I hope to see Congress enact that legislation (and use their authority under Article III of the Constitution to tell the Supreme Court, “Hands off this legislation! Congress declares it out of your jurisdiction.”) While they are at it, judicial reform is needed. Since they are obviously political, eliminate lifetime appointments. Fifteen years seems appropriate to me. And make SCOTUS accountable to an independent Standing Committee. (I learned recently that “Standing” as opposed to “Special” implies a Committee’s time of existence is not limited.)
If even political donations of the size that ordinary people might give is to be eliminated, a mechanism for the costs of campaigning will have to be provided by some government process. Putting a strict limit on the size to some modest total that cumulatively would cover the expenses but not create the possibility of implicit quid pro quos seems more practical to me. And it provides the citizen an opportunity to express himself without being abusive. Perhaps money in modest amounts may be regarded as speech, if modest enough not to be taken as an attempt for special favors.
We need to reverse the benign (actually, NOT benign) neglect of anti-monopoly regulation, particularly regarding media. It will not be possible to suddenly return to the decentralized situation that existed decades ago, but a course needs to be determined to return to something like that, gradually but relentlessly. And the growth of a permanent monied aristocracy must be reversed. Reverse the tax cuts for the super-wealthy made by Reagan, G.W. Bush, and Trump, retaining the sops for ordinary people included to make them politically palatable. Restore weakened provisions regarding estate taxes. Eliminate the zeroing out of capital gains upon death. Make the heirs responsible for those taxes. Make income tax steeply progressive and eliminate all sales taxes which are retrogressive.