Finally, more legislative offices should adopt a rule that Senator Jacob K. Javits (R.-NY), maintained while I worked for him. His office would assist only constituents from New York State who needed help from the federal government. In other words, it did not work for lawyers or lobbyists on K Street. The office would act only on requests from actual constituents. It would refuse meetings with lawyers or lobbyists without the living, breathing constituent in the room.  Letters from lawyers and lobbyists were politely returned with a notification that the office would be happy to respond to a letter from a constituent.

Those members of Congress who are stuck in today's culture of hyper-partisanship, willful incompetence, and "pandermonium" will ignore these kinds of ideas. Today, the Democrats have an opportunity to show they actually do want to change things and have the spine to face down conventional wisdom and business as usual. Should they fail, or rather not even try, our democracy will continue down its current ruinous road.

Winslow T. Wheeler worked for four US senators and the Government Accountability Office for 31 years.  He resigned his job with the Senate Budget Committee in 2002 under pressure from senators who objected to his criticisms expressed in an essay titled, "Mr. Smith Is Dead: No One Stands in the Way as Congress Laces Post-Sept. 11 Defense Bills with Pork."  In 2004 he wrote about Congress and national security in his book, The Wastrels of Defense (US Naval Institute Press).  He is now the director of the Straus Military Reform Project of the Center for Defense Information in Washington DC.