These 12 Lawmakers Agree: It's Time to Leave Congress | NYT Opinion

Citizens United needs to be overturned

“I had to raise $250k to be on certain committees.” So Congress is like Scientology. You cant get to the next level of power unless you raise money for the group?

Campaign finance reform Anti-Omnibus reform Term limits Anti-lobbyist reform

So if these people are honest enough to say what the problems are, but leave Congress, what will we get as replacements?

It sounds like it is corrupted if you need to buy a seat of the committee…

The fact that not ONE of these politicians mentioned ending gerrymandering as a way to fix congress is both shameful and alarming.

Very insightful. My only criticism is how all of them seem to disassociate “corruption” with money pouring in from “special interest” that deeply affect voting decisions. If that’s not corruption I don’t know what is. Not evil, but corrupt as in ‘not in the people’s best interest’.

I'm always amused when politicians say that their salaries should keep up with inflation, all while the federal minimum wage hasn't budged since 2009. The minimum wage in 1974 was $2, which when adjusted for inflation is $16.10/h in today's money. The current minimum wage is $7.25...

Money. They’re leaving to make $500K a year as lobbyists or sit on boards of corporations.

Let's build them a dormitory in DC or Maryland.😂

WE NEED TERM LIMITS NOW…20,30, 40+ years is way too long. If we don’t put term limits soon we will not get anything done.

Basically what they all said, was "congress is corrupt, but i'm not. It's them, and it's frustrating.' Like Mark Twain said, "we have the best government money can buy." We still do...unfortunately.

The problem with Congress? Not a SINGLE one of them when talking about benefits said the benefit of representing constituents. That- that right there is the problem with Congress

It’s sorta upsetting that i don’t know any of these people.

Provide public housing to representatives in Congress instead of a pay raise. We shouldn’t encourage DC to become even more expensive.

As someone from the UK, this was fascinating.

When Newt Gingrich took over as House Speaker in the 1990's HE'S the one who directly DEMANDED his party members disassociate themselves with those "across the aisle" and set about to intentionally foster an environment of animosity and hostility. HE set an agenda demanding his members stop cooperating, stop interacting, and outright stated he would no longer support most "compromise" or bi-partisan collaboration. MUCH of what has transpired over the last 30 years is DIRECTLY traceable to his "leadership" and the toxic environment he encouraged. While he's certainly not the ONLY one to do so, and a bit more than a decade later his counterpart in the Senate basically did the same thing by demanding that HIS members outright reject any and all proposals put forward from the White House. The current dysfunction started with N.G. , became even worse with M. M., and "WE, the PEOPLE" would do well to remember that!

Its not been the peoples house since the 1970's.

Kilmer is my representative and it’s good to hear that Congress realizes that they are totally dysfunctional and trying a little to reform themselves. But it really is up to the public too in order to fix a broken system

If Congress wants a pay raise, then give the rest of America a pay raise by raising min. wage. It's long overdue.