The best solution I can think of is public financing of elections, but I am very pessimistic about such a law getting through Congress, even if the Democrats retake the House in 2012.

¹According to figures gathered by the Campaign Finance Institute, it costs about $1.3M to win a House seat and about $7.5M to win a Senate seat. (http://www.cfinst.org/data/HistoricalStats.aspx)

Seriously, nothing will happen if not even the comparably bright people on this site is able to digest the fact that politics in the US is more complicated (and, indeed more broken) than "democrat good, republican bad". They're pretty much all scum, and the few honest people seem to be pretty well distributed across the parties.

Every politician does whatever they can within the rules (and then some) to get elected, but some want to change the rules because, for example, banning corporate donations would probably hurt Republicans more than Democrats.

But finally, and my most important point: No, Republicans, to the extend they have a common position doesn't want campaign finance reform. But neither does the democrats (to the extend they have a common position). Most significantly, a very prominent Democrat broke his pledge to take public financing in the face of raising heaps of money and outspend his opponent 2:1.

I mean, perfectly honest, Democratic congress or not, is Obama going to get behind serious campaign finance reform?

Seriously, it's part of their platform.

In the same way that companies distort regulations of their industry to thwart competition, politicians will ensure that public campaign financing rules will prevent newcomers (e.g. tea party, green party, etc) from ever getting elected.

You don't. We change the societal web of incentives such that the people who become legislators are capable of making the distinction between unethical lobbying and their role as representatives on their own.

The people we're getting right now sometimes seem cognitively unable to draw this distinction at all.

EDIT: And how do we do that, I hear you cry? We'll what we're doing right now is a good start. Capitalists, entrepreneurs and some might say downright greedy people having loud, public conversations questioning and debating the role of private business in government, and vice-versa. If this keeps happening, the meme that perhaps such unrestrained lobbying might be harmful will permeate mainstream culture, and when the politicians of the future are preparing their campaign platforms, personal ethical responsibility in their relationship to industry will be at the top of their minds, because they perceive them to be at the top of the minds of those who will be voting for them. Obviously it is too ambitious to expect politicians to act selflessly. Therefore we must make it in their interests to act ethically.

And run-on-sentences. Those help too.

This is why it's relevant when a politician has had an affair; if he is unwilling to uphold the most solemn covenants he makes in his lifetime, to the people to whom is the closest, and upon whom the negative impact of his actions will hit the hardest, why do we have any idea that he will be willing to uphold his covenant to perform in the general interest or uphold the Constitution when his covenant is with an amorphous, anonymous mass of "The People"?

DHH told me to attempt the impossible if I want to achieve success. I see it as profoundly unimaginative and unambitious to restrict this notion to the fields of business and programming.

You've gotta have a go!

Besides, 'watching closely' is pretty trivial now. The government certainly seems pretty good at doing it to us.

You don't. In short, you de-incentivize lobbying by drastically reducing the size, scope, and budget of the federal government as mandated in the Constitution.

Income taxes were never "banned". Before Pollock v. Farmers' Loan & Trust in 1895, federal income taxes were considered an "indirect" tax constitutionally, and thus only had to meet the requirements of Art. I, Sec. 8, cl. 1, which was that taxes must be uniform geographically. Pollock declared federal income taxes a "direct" tax, which thus had to meet further requirements under Art. I, Sec. 2, cl. 3, which called for the receipts of direct taxes to be apportioned proportionally to the population of each individual state.

The Sixteenth Amendment (ratified 18 years after Pollock) lifted the requirement of proportional distribution; it did not change the constitutionality (or unconstitutionality) of federal income taxes.

Like I said, I don't know if it's true, but I don't really see a mechanism by which single term limits will help the situation. In fact, they may make it even worse by making it hard for politicians to distinguish themselves by a record of actually doing good. Instead, the public will have absolutely nothing to go on besides advertisements, which are paid for by guess who.

For the record, I have heard this said from both sides of the aisle. I'm not standing by its truthfulness because government brokenness is a complex issue, but it certainly seems like a valid explanation to me.

When newbies get elected, they have a tough time navigating the corridors of power. This is where the lobbyists come in: they've seen the system (they probably were a part of it before becoming lobbyists), they know how it works, and they're just too happy to help out. This way their influence grows stronger year by year.

Term limits is not the answer. I think California's open primaries will help in electing moderates, people who are willing to look at all sides of the equation.

Just in case you see this, my idea was to limit ALL contributions to $1 per entity - person, corporation, whatever.

Hmmm... So if a corporation had/forced all employees to offer up their dollar to a specific candidate, looks like you are right - It could/would still be gamed... sigh.

One statistic the article states is that some organisation spent about 700,000 dollars in lobbying and 2.5 millions in campaign contributions. I only wonder which was more effective.