Can't stand Congress? Disappointed, frustrated, fed up with the ineffectiveness and the fecklessness and the finger pointing? Us, too. and so are four of the institution's most prominent recent members, who came together to do something about it. The Esquire commission to fix Congress will now report its findings, in the form of a twenty-two-point plan.

It's a scorcher in the nation's capital, and the AC is on the fritz. Somewhere in this sprawling redbrick office complex not far from the White House, someone is working on getting the cool air up and running, but in the meantime suit jackets come off, revealing freshly pressed dress shirts that billow liberally. Deeply lined brows are wiped with linen handkerchiefs. Someone who's read too much Robert Caro might interpret this scene as the power move of a latter-day LBJ—cut the air, make 'em sweat till they give in—but that is not what is going on here. Six men have gathered in this room because, like nine out of ten of their fellow Americans, they don't like what's happening in the United States Congress right now.

What makes these men different from other Americans, though, is that they've all worked in Congress, and most of them even helped lead it. They know what the 535 men and women in the House and Senate are up against—the complexities of a bicameral legislature, the power of rules both written and received, the armies of lobbyists and good-government meter maids and constituents with expensive tastes and short memories. They understand the frustrations of legislative inertia and crummy approval ratings. And they recognize that it's one thing for Americans to treat Congress like a punching bag—which is only right and fair—and another for them to treat it like a punchline, a joke, which is what it has become and which, when you think about it, isn't really funny at all.

So over two days, these former leaders will take a break from their political afterlives and talk in detail about how they would fix Congress if they still held their gavels. These men, the very pictures of sobriety, if a little sweaty, will debate and discuss and cut deals to find consensus on a series of enforceable, actionable measures that would strengthen Congress and protect it from even the worst political gridlock.

Consensus? Hard enough to find at the average American dinner table and even harder to hope for when you've got this much vintage brass in one room: Tom Daschle and Trent Lott, two Senate majority leaders from opposing sides of the Clinton-era culture wars; Bob Livingston and Barney Frank, two might-have-been Speakers of the House (the former once having voted to expel the latter from the chamber for behavior unbecoming); and two former high-level staffers to help run the show: Alan Frumin, a longtime Senate parliamentarian, to advise on matters of precedent and procedure; and Lawrence O'Donnell, the host of his own show on MSNBC and a chief of staff to the Senate Finance Committee at a time when big bipartisan deals actually crossed the president's desk, to moderate and lead the Commission.

Together they make up the Esquire Commission to Fix Congress, with the only ground rule being that their recommendations must be unanimous. Unanimity would be hard, but it would be the only way to ensure that this Commission—their Commission—could rise above partisanship, above the rotten state of our politics.

"YOU CAN'T RUN THE COUNTRY ON WEDNESDAYS."

The last to arrive and the first to talk business is Tom Daschle, the soft-spoken son of South Dakota, who chooses a seat across the table from his friend Trent Lott, he of the magnificent hair. Both served in the House of Representatives in the seventies and eighties before switching to the Senate and leading their respective parties as minority and/or majority leaders during the Clinton impeachment, 9/11, the anthrax attacks, and other turn-of-the-century nightmares. Following their collective sixty years in Congress, both chose to stay and work in D. C. (Lott as a full-time lobbyist with Squire Patton Boggs, and Daschle as a strategic advisor for the clients of DLA Piper, the richest law firm in the world); both are deeply involved in the Bipartisan Policy Center, a think tank whose recent report, "Governing in a Polarized America: A Bipartisan Blueprint to Strengthen our Democracy," helped shape our meetings' agenda; and both seem to relish the unlikeliness of their Bosom Buddy friendship.

Daschle begins by pointing to a signal change in the lives of members of Congress. "The airplane," he says, "accommodates peoples' schedules in a way that didn't occur thirty years ago. People leave on Thursdays, they come back on Tuesdays, and they try to govern on Wednesdays, so number one, they don't get to know each other; and number two, they don't really get to deal with the legislative process as most of us knew it."

Bob Livingston, a redwood of a man who represented parts of New Orleans in the House for twenty-two years and chaired the powerful Appropriations Committee for four of them, nods along in agreement. "When I started in the House [in 1977], we came in on Monday morning and there was discussion on Monday afternoon. We had committee and subcommittee meetings on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays in the morning and then debate on the floors in the afternoons, and then we all got together, often in a bipartisan fashion, in the evenings. And it was a regular functioning organization. Today it is totally broken. Republicans don't know Republicans, Democrats don't know Democrats, and it's because they're not here. I think Newt [Gingrich] started it: Leave your families at home. You'll be closer to the people and it's great politics."

"Now we're seeing people," adds Frank, "running for Congress on the notion that Congress is a terrible place." (He means Republicans, whom he holds primarily responsible for the polarization that this Commission and its recommendations have to overcome.) "Government's a terrible idea, and therefore you should minimize government and minimize your stay there."

Livingston shakes his head knowingly. "That's what has them leaving on Thursdays and coming back on Tuesdays and doing all that work in less than forty-eight hours," he says. "You can't run the country on Wednesdays. America is a full-time nation, and it demands a full-time Congress."

"Lemma ask you," says Lott to the room. "Have you ever discussed [a five-day workweek] with members? What did they say about it? I don't know that I've asked them."

"I have," says Livingston. Once, when he was in the leadership, "I said, 'We're gonna be in for five days,' and I caught a lot of flak from some of the members in the Midwest." O'Donnell speaks up for said Midwest contingent: Wouldn't a five-day workweek disadvantage the way, way out-of-towners? Wouldn't that mean those members would have to move their families to D. C. or risk barely seeing them? Wouldn't it mean fewer opportunities to raise money in their home states or districts? To a man, the Commissioners agreed, that's exactly what it would mean, and such a move would revolutionize how legislators live and work.

It would not be enough, however, to ensure that members of the two chambers would work like normal professionals: They would have to work together. "We've been in a period recently where the House is in session while the Senate's out. Then the Senate's in session and the House is out," says Lott. "I had trouble with it when I was the majority leader, too. Newt was the Speaker and [Dick] Armey was the majority leader, and I would meet with Armey to say 'Okay, look: Our bills are passing like ships in the night.' "

So the first order of business, come to unanimously, is to mandate a five-day workweek (with three weeks of every month spent in session and one week on break) and to coordinate the two chambers' schedules so they're in session at the same time. No more racing home to the district on Thursdays for fundraisers and family time. No more disassociating themselves from the "Washington elite." Being a member of Congress would be a full-time, all-in job.

"WHERE'S THE PAIN TO FILIBUSTERS?"

Of all the assembled legislators, Frank was the most recent to pack up his office and head home. A progressive Democrat whom Tip O'Neill once figured would be the first Jewish Speaker of the House, Frank represented Massachusetts's blue-collar Fourth District from 1981 to 2013, rising to oversee the Financial Services Committee just as the economy was tanking. Even now, with a new husband, a new goatee, and a new teaching gig at Harvard, he's still a bull looking for a china shop. Which is exactly what he finds when talk turns to the filibuster, the parliamentary tactic through which any senator can block or delay action on a bill. "The filibuster is undemocratic," Frank says. "Abolish it altogether. It undermines the functioning of the government."

Frank's preference notwithstanding, there's not much appetite from the rest of the Commission for doing away with the filibuster—even Livingston, a fellow House veteran with no great love for Senate traditions, sees value in it: "The construction of the Constitution was to provide checks and balances so the majority doesn't tyrannize the minority. Filibuster's a protection for the minority; I would not vote to eliminate it." However, everyone agrees that things have gotten out of hand.

"[Lyndon] Johnson had one cloture vote in six years," Daschle says of the tactic by which the majority leader can cut off debate (and end a filibuster). "There have been 341 votes in the last six years. There are just so many opportunities to filibuster: the motion to proceed, the bill itself, amendments to the bill, going to conference. Where's the pain to filibusters? There's no pain involved," meaning that the mere threat to filibuster works just as well as a filibuster and doesn't require anybody to stand up all night and talk.

Everyone agrees in principle to some degree of reform, though Lott, more than the others, is wary of any sweeping changes: "I don't want to get people thinking that filibustering's bad," he says. "It is a unique, important part of the history of the Senate which gives every single senator a role to play. But the number of times you can delay an issue, I'm just not comfortable with that."

Options for filibuster reform quickly boil down to two specific steps in the legislative process—the motion to proceed (i.e., the point when the majority leader can bring up a bill for consideration) and the motion to request a conference committee to reconcile Senate and House versions of the same bill—with all the Commissioners agreeing to limit a member's ability to filibuster either motion. Neither one is a silver bullet that would facilitate the passage of a bipartisan bill related to, say, immigration reform or border security (to name but two pressing issues that have been stalled or blocked recently), but between them they remove two key impediments to potential progress.

Daschle even goes one better, offering a proposal that would turn the filibuster on its head: Instead of requiring sixty votes to overcome the threat of a filibuster, the Senate would require forty-one votes to sustain one. This would put the burden on any given senator to have forty of his peers backing him up, and it would make each one of them accountable for any obstruction of a bill. And this change would require that a member actually be there to vote—right now you can threaten to filibuster and leave town. "[The current system] lets people duck a bit: 'Oh, I didn't vote on that,' " explains Frank. "But if you're gonna keep the filibuster, putting the burden on the filibusterers would be very helpful."

Lott, hesitant to endorse any changes that might render the Senate that much less unique, asks for a day to think about the 60/41 switch as well as a proposed change that would, in the absence of a very good reason, automatically discharge a nominee held up in committee after ninety days and get his or her name to the floor for due consideration. (In general, senators don't want the Senate to become the House, where a simple majority—or, as Frank calls it, "democracy"—rules.)

The agenda moves on to other topics on which the group finds broad consensus:

> Strengthen the roles of committees and subcommittees in both chambers and limit the power of leadership to rewrite bills that have already cleared committee. (Livingston: "Everything's being done by the White House and the congressional leadership, and the junior members really don't even know why they're here. Because they have no power." Being a member of a strong committee gives junior members a greater say in the makeup of a bill.)

> Change the amendment process in the House to limit the ability of a single member to kill a bill or delay its passage indefinitely.

> Change the amendment process in the Senate so the majority leader can't "fill the amendment tree," or make it so that members of the minority can't offer amendments.

And more—see "The Report"—and as cold air slowly, silently fills the room and the temperature drops, the first day comes to a close and it becomes clear there are to be no crippling ideological clashes among these former masters of the Senate and House. In fact, when Daschle has to cut out a few minutes early, he gives his proxy to "Trent," so commingled are the minds of these ideological opposites.

"FORTY HOURS, JUST FUNDRAISING. FOR FRESHMEN."

Daschle arrives on the second day having just attended a fundraiser for a friend, and the topic of campaign finance is on the brain. "I heard that the Democratic leadership, during freshman orientation, said to them, 'Our strong advice is you spend thirty hours a week fundraising, in calling, and ten hours going to events.' Forty hours, just fundraising. For freshmen." (When they would sit on committees, see to their constituents, spend time on the floor of Congress, spend time with their families—well, that's why they have staff.)

The relationship between elected officials and their constituents has seldom been more fraught, in part because social media have demolished the traditional means of airing grievances (writing letters, circulating petitions) but also because the Supreme Court has ruled that free money equals free speech and that anyone, from anywhere, can spend as much money as they want to influence any race. A random congressman from, say, the Florida Second doesn't have to worry just about watching his mouth or the small-business owners in Tallahassee—he's got to worry about the Koch brothers or Mike Bloomberg financing some Astroturf opposition.

To fend off such opposition, legislators not only are increasingly careful about sticking to a script (party-line voting in both chambers has never been higher) but are also raising money like it's their job, because it is. Several proposals come up that would limit the extent to which legislators would be allowed to fundraise while in office—but the Commissioners determine they're mostly unworkable. (Frank crystallized their realpolitik resistance with a quote from a fellow Bostonian, Martin Lomasney: "Never write when you can speak. Never speak when you can nod. Never nod when you can wink." As long as there are eyes to wink and see, votes are up for grabs.) What can be forbidden, though, are individual-member PACs, or so-called Leadership PACs, which are relatively new to Washington and which effectively monetize influence. Frank offers a definition by way of clarification: "It's a way for any member to get larger contributions and then in turn become a dispenser and buy influence. It shouldn't be called a 'Leadership PAC.' It should be called 'I wanna buy my way into the Leadership PAC.' "

These PACs play to the worst impulses of partisanship—one member using his PAC to fund the opponent of another member or, worse, to finance "issue ads" against the member—and the Commissioners all agree that prohibiting them is just one way they can leech the poison from the current campaign-finance system. Another would be to limit the number of committees any given member can serve on; with committee assignments come lobbying dollars and industry donors, and the number of committees one serves on can quickly become something of a cash grab. (Besides: It would be nice if members weren't so oversubscribed and could actually focus on the work of, say, two committees.)

"What about earmarks?" asks Livingston, seemingly out of nowhere. He stands up from the table so he can go feed the parking meter. (The day before, he got a twenty-five-dollar parking ticket, and—full disclosure—Esquire paid the penalty. That represents the sum total we paid the Commissioners for their efforts.)

The crowd goes wild. There is instant and unanimous support for bringing back so-called earmarks, or those provisions by which congressmen can direct federal dollars to projects or initiatives that benefit their constituents. (In 2011, leaders of both chambers agreed to a formal ban on them in the interest of combating corruption and cutting the budget. Instead, they basically limited transparency and oversight for many spending projects that would happen anyway.) The point wouldn't be to deny the quid pro quo at the heart of earmarks (or, for that matter, all politics, everywhere), but rather to make officials more accountable for their efforts on behalf of constituents, donors, and lobbyists. As it turns out, most officials want to be held accountable. "People talk about 'secret earmarks,' " says Frank of the caricature of corrupt legislators working in the dead of night to secure funding for their district. "I never had an earmark that I didn't want to tell everyone about!"

"MAYBE THEY OUGHT TO DO A LITTLE LOOKING IN THE MIRROR."

The rest of the Commission's time is devoted to finalizing old business—Lott commits to making filibusters subject to forty-one affirmative votes and to the get-out-of-committee-jail card for presidential nominees—and to summarily dismissing some remaining issues. The idea of minimizing the importance of seniority in both chambers hits a brick wall, since individual circumstances can vary from chamber to chamber, and one committee's grizzled old coot can be another's master legislator.

The role of leadership comes up time and again, particularly as it relates to the tools available to Senators Reid and McConnell and Representatives Pelosi and Boehner to corral their caucuses and keep the parties in line. And when asked why none of the agreed-upon initiatives aren't already in place, the answers go straight to the top:

Daschle: "We've evolved into a far more leadership-centric environment, and all of this is anti-leadership-centric. This is really putting the power back in chairs and in members."

Frank: "This would erode their power and their control of the process."

Lott: "The Speaker is not gonna like the idea that he can't just decide 'No, we're not gonna send this to conference.' "

Reid and McConnell, Pelosi and Boehner: bipartisan bogeymen, except they can be held hostage to the demands of individual members and member caucuses that elect them to their posts. "You need to look at the mortality rate of the leaders, Democrat and Republican speakers and majority leaders," says Lott. "When I got my ox in the ditch, it wasn't the Democrats [who did it], it was Republicans. So if you get out too far ahead of your team, they'll cut your throat. So that's what is going on in the House and the Senate right now. Leadership's afraid." (This in particular is the issue in the House, where Boehner has had to deal with the thirty to forty members of the unofficial Tea Party caucus who wake up every morning bright-eyed and ready to make his life hell.)

They've reached their final consensus: It's time to pack up and head on their way, with twenty-two tips for their successors in congressional leadership, and the American voters, to consider. "I was struck by a poll I read a couple weeks ago," says Frank. The poll was about the degree of trust that Americans put in their national institutions, and "the institution that got the lowest rating from the people was the one that people have the most influence in shaping. So maybe the American people ought to do a little looking in the mirror."

It's a simple truism that people get the government they choose. And if Americans think they can do better—and if they think the challenges of these trying times require a better Congress, a more capable Congress, or at the very least a Congress that isn't universally loathed—there's only one thing to do about it.

Published in the November 2014 issue

Richard Dorment Richard Dorment is the editor-in-chief of Men’s Health.

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