Controlling lobbying and other reasons that Congress isn't working for us? This came to me out of the blue and at first I thought that it wasn't practical but with some more thought I began to think it might be an answer to the behavior of our Congress. Congress which is now led by not the most able of the members but the ones that have the safest districts therefore being most electable but maybe not as qualified as others for chairmanships and leadership positions.
Seniority is being used as an organization tool for figuring out with relative ease who gets what leadership position, who gets to be on what committee, etc. Seniority enables the older members to get the earmarks and benefits for their districts before other members of Congress. But couldn't leadership positions or committee membership be dettermined by other qualifiers besides how safe your district happens to be.
There is no reason why districts not being safe havens should be penalized by changing their representatives regularly. It doesn't make any sense encouraging the kind of behavior that seniority seems to be encouraging.
Instead of some automatic appointment to positions the parties would or could decide who should do what based on their competency. Then maybe a member of Congress could even run by using his/her expertice in an area as a reason that his constituents would want to vote for her/him because then he could try to lead his/her party in that area.
I would like to see an effort to outlaw any use of seniority in both house of Congress. I'm anxious to hear your comments.