Let’s reward bipartisanship — instead of party loyalty

Congress today is too often an exercise in controlling political power, not in addressing the real-life challenges of the American people in a thoughtful, consensus-driven way.

I saw it when I served in Congress: Members being told how much money they had to raise, how to vote, being promised carrots and threatened with sticks. Vote how you’re told; stay quiet and raise money, and you’ll have a long career. But fail to go along and you’re abandoned by the very institutional protections that have been designed to ensure incumbency. I had been in Congress for just a few weeks when a member of my party’s leadership asked to see me. It’s was an unusual request, but one I was eager to accept. When I arrived, he handed me a check. I was grateful, and in a perfunctory way offered to be helpful. His response, “Just don’t be - - - -.” What he meant was just do what they tell me to do and everything would be fine — more checks, more help, more protection.

I had the privilege to serve in Congress for three years. A Republican, I at first represented a district evenly divided between the parties. President Obama had won it twice, and I was elected twice. I then ran in a newly drawn, much more partisan district that Obama won by nearly 12 percent. I likewise ran races in which the national party provided financial help, and races in which the party abandoned me because I was too cavalier. I had hyperpartisan races, and more independent races. And I learned a lot.

I learned that there are three things we can change today to fix Washington and create a Congress that is rewarded for bipartisanship and problem-solving, replacing the rewards for mere partisan loyalty. And the good news? Voters can largely drive these changes without relying on their representatives in Tallahassee or Washington.

First, create electorally competitive districts. If we draw as many 50-50 districts as possible, members of Congress would no longer be insulated by supermajority districts where the only key to reelection is their own party. Only 10 percent of congressional districts are competitive today — meaning that 90 percent of Congress represents a party first and community second. Just as Floridians approved the Fair Districts measure at the ballot box to require geographic compactness, so could we have a ballot initiative requiring electoral competitiveness.

Second, open our primary elections to all voters. A closed primary system in which only registered members of a party can vote to nominate their candidate seems intuitively fair — only Republicans should be eligible to nominate the Republican candidate. But with roughly one-third of Florida voters now choosing no party affiliation, both parties are missing the opportunity to grow the breadth of their constituencies by opening the primary process and developing stronger candidates that can both keep their base while appealing to independents wishing to participate in the primary process. Voters can change this through a state ballot initiative.

Finally, fundamentally reform campaign finance. Whatever your position on the solution, we know that today’s system perpetuates undue influence by special-interest groups on both sides of the aisle, requires candidates either to have personal wealth or access to others’ wealth, and the burden of fundraising takes members of Congress away from the job they were elected to do. It’s why I introduced The Stop Act to prohibit your member of Congress from directly asking for money. We could consider stricter caps on giving, further regulation on PAC activity and super PACS, public financing of campaigns or restrictions on the eligible period for electioneering. Whatever the solution, 90 percent of the problem can be addressed legislatively, outside the constitutional encumbrances of the Citizens United ruling.

It’s time we stop letting leadership in Washington and Tallahassee control the electoral process. So let’s change it. After all, it belongs to us, not them.

End undue influence by special-interest groups on both sides of the aisle.