Seniority Rules?

I've had this debate with a few friends, but haven't spelled it out here yet so here it goes. Since I'm pro political accountability and rather anti-incumbent there's a few changes I wish to make to the political establishment, specifically in the area of congressional seniority.

Congress has this great scheme going: the longer you stay in office, the more powerful and influential you are, so the more likely you are to be reelected. This is because important congressional chairmanships are meted out based on seniority (well, that and whichever party is in power). The longer you are reelected, the more power you wield, and the less likely you are to be voted out of power. Great for politicians, terrible for political accountability because if replaced by the voters the freshman congressman wields far less power in the name of the state or congressional district.

So lets come at this problem sideways, and change the definition of seniority. I propose changing seniority to how many non-consecutive terms you've served. So instead of measuring years, you measure how many times the candidate has come into power. Specifically, if they've only been elected once, their number is 1. If they've been elected, lost, and been elected again, their seniority is 2. The more times they've been in and out, the higher the seniority they have accrued.

This would mean that politicians don't want a constant grip on power, because they would lose seniority to fellow congressmen who are repeatedly in and out of power. Tag-teams may even form as pairs of same party candidates trade off to gain seniority in tandem. The whole political system would become more dynamic and responsive because of the constant influx of people, willing relinquishing of power, and those who become the most senior and powerful either decide against stepping down and eventually fall behind competitors, or choose to 'rule' for only brief periods. Win-win.

Now this being Congress, rule changes will be really hard to execute. It might be best to begin on the state level. What is needed is to get some low ranking representatives who would have seniority under the new system (being in-and-out a few times) to realize their potential gain in power, and begin to organize a sort of 'coup'. This will slowly snowball as more people come in and out of power naturally, and eventually there will be enough votes to change the system, and the formerly less powerful gain a little more power, and the public gains a heck of a lot more political accountability.



Lurker
(I really need to find a way to get paid for being a political strategist)