My own opinion is that state/federal representatives should be chosen by lottery from the voting public and it should be considered civic duty (like jury duty) to serve 2 years and then return to previous job (like national guard returning from oversea assignments). It might (might) make people more attentive to the political issues.
I'm more a fan of the idea of merging direct democracy with representative democracy. Basically what we have now but with a mechanism for the public to vote directly on important/contentious issues annually. The public vote doesn't necessarily have to be the final say, we could have the public vote count for 50% of the total vote and the reps vote count for the other 50% for example. This would give the public a way to measure how well their reps are actually representing them and the reps a good measure of public opinion. It would also give the general public more reason to pay attention to political issues and a greater feeling of involvement. My 2 cents.
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