How do we Restore the Concept of Citizen Legislators?

Last summer, I and my family visited Mount Vernon (George Washington's estate). I was struck by the fact that he didn't want to be President. After the Revolution, he wanted nothing more than to return home to Mount Vernon. He was a farmer at heart, yet when elected, he served his country out of a sense of duty instead of a desire for personal gain, as some of today's legislators have done. He was the quintessential Citizen Legislator (despite not being in Congress).

Nowadays, our politicians do their best to make sure they don't have to suffer the consequences of any laws they pass. (Case and point: Health Care legislation that explicitly exempts Congress from participating in the plan the rest of us are forced into.) But, instead of merely pointing out problems with "the system", I feel it my duty to propose solutions. So, let me ask (rhetorically, for the moment), how can we restore the concept of citizen legislators?

I think that career politicians are one source of the problem. Many of today's politicians don't have another job to which to return at the end of their service, so they don't want to leave the halls of Congress. Many of the rest of us actually have jobs that we'd have to quit just to run for office. (I sure wouldn't be willing to quit my job to run for office, even if I wanted to be in Congress.) So, I think we need a way to forcibly inject some fresh candidates into Congress, while eliminating some dead weight. What follows is my proposal, which I believe is one way to accomplish this: The Legislative Draft.

The Legislative Draft

We currently require 18 year-old males to register for Selective Service. So, let's require that every 25 year-old take a Civil Service (or other) exam to determine eligibility for the draft, as you want legislators to have a degree of intelligence. (25 is the minimum age that you can be elected to the House of Representatives. One wouldn't be eligible to serve in the Senate until age 30.) We would have to establish a minimum score for eligibility for the Draft (a detail which could be determined later).

Now, we need some seats in each legislative body to be filled by the draft. I propose expanding the size of each body by (roughly) one third: add 50 Senators, and 150 Representatives. (This also has the side effect of diluting somewhat the power of each existing legislator, and providing more legislators to represent the people.) And, of course, we have to add some more legislative districts.

And now that we've established the seats to be filled by the draft, we now need to address the manner in which the draft will be conducted. In my opinion, the best way to do this is by lot. Randomly select, from the pool of eligible candidates in a given congressional district (considering both scoring on the above-mentioned exam, as well as existing Constitutional requirements for eligibility), the individuals to serve. When your number comes up, you go and serve your Country for your term. When your term is complete, you can either run for the seat you just held, or you can return to your old life. (With laws requiring that your employer make your position available at the end of your (first) term, if you wish to return.)

I need to wrap up with one final detail: The above plan does nothing to give the career politicians the boot. So, I add one additional requirement: The seats filled by lot are rotated so that every seat in Congress is filled by lot every third term. This creates a de facto three-term limit, without expressly creating term limit legislation.

So, there's my grand plan, in a nutshell. Does it have it's flaws? I'm certain it does. (One being that getting this to pass would be nearly impossible.) But, I hope that maybe I got you thinking a bit. And I'd hope that maybe it could be the beginning of a constructive dialogue. We can't just point out problems without offering solutions. How can my idea improved? What other ideas can we put forth to help restore accountability (and make it easier to elect qualified individuals who want to serve) to Congress?