Get the Hell Out of Washington
How Temporary Service Became Permanent Power
Congress was never supposed to become a lifetime career.
The basic idea was pretty simple: citizens would leave their homes, businesses, farms, classrooms, and communities for a time, serve the public, and then return home to live under the same laws they helped pass.
That’s not what we have anymore.
Today, too many members of Congress spend decades in Washington. They build donor networks, climb the party ladder, learn how to work the system, and become better at staying in office than representing the people who sent them there.
The problem isn’t just age. It isn’t even just term limits.
The real problem is permanent power.
When public service becomes a career, reelection starts shaping every decision. Fundraising replaces governing. Party leadership becomes more important than the people back home. Lobbyists build relationships that last for decades. And Washington slowly becomes its own separate world.
Meanwhile, everyday America keeps paying the bills.
We go to work. We raise families. We run businesses. We deal with rising prices, insurance companies, taxes, regulations, and the consequences of laws written by people who may not have lived a normal life in forty years.
A citizen legislature would look different.
It would include mechanics, nurses, teachers, veterans, farmers, tradesmen, and small-business owners. People who know Washington is a temporary assignment, not a permanent home.
They would serve.
They would represent.
And then they would go home.
That is the subject of the latest episode of The Defiant Citizen:
Get the Hell Out of Washington
How Temporary Service Became Permanent Power
This episode looks at how Congress became a professional political class, why incumbents are so hard to remove, how the endless campaign changed representation, and what it would take to restore the citizen legislature.
Because Congress does not belong to Congress.
It belongs to us.