Yes, we have the power of the vote, but the political parties and special interest groups choose which candidates to put forth and fund with campaign dollars. As a result, we have little choice but to vote for the same type of politicians as are already in Congress today.

Our current politicians are predominantly lawyers. We call them lawmakers, but they are in fact policy makers as well. Policies should be driven by a diverse group of responsible citizens whose backgrounds span the American population – not by lawyers. In contrast to how Congress currently does business is how businesses conduct business. In a business setting, business people (those who understand the business) make business decisions and lawyers write legal documentation to suit those business decisions. Similarly, when individuals hire lawyers, the lawyers may offer advice, but it is the individuals who make the decisions based upon that advice. Then the lawyers follow up with the legal mumbo-jumbo.

What we need to do is elect responsible Americans with diverse backgrounds and talents to handle our policy making. We need teachers, doctors, scientists, engineers, environmentalists, psychologists, social workers, accountants, financial experts, and others to decide on policies. We should then hire (not elect) lawyers who write the laws based upon those decisions.

The political parties don’t want average Americans in Congress because they are too independent and cannot be controlled and influenced as easily as career politicians. In order to short circuit the influence of the political parties, I suggest adding a degree of chance. Here is my proposal. When a person wants to become a candidate for office, he or she would have to circulate a petition and obtain a minimum number of valid signatures. For each open elected position, 200 such petitioners would be selected at random. Next, an organization yet to be defined would vet the candidates and narrow the choice down to a few good, qualified candidates. Perhaps the vetting process would include journalists to learn and write about the candidates, and law enforcement to ensure that the candidates have a clean record. The chosen candidates’ names would subsequently go on the ballot and we the people would then vote.

It sounds counterintuitive to introduce a degree of randomness to the equation. But I believe that randomly selected people have a better chance of accomplishing good things for America than the currently gridlocked members of Congress. And there is a precedent: the jury selection process. In order to select a jury of our peers, the first step in the process is random.