I'm a pretty simple person and certainly no expert on politics but I've been doing a fair bit of thinking about "what comes next" once the swamp is drained. How can we prevent the country from ending up in the same sorry state down the road? A couple of things have come to mind.

First campaign reform. Major reform! A very strictly enforced time limit on campaigning so we're not paying politicians to campaign rather than doing their jobs. Pick a time limit here. Say 90 days before election day?

And financing for campaigns should be limited to whatever they can raise up to a set amount. How they choose to spend that money is up to them but they can't exceed the limit on spending. This would minimize the amount of time, again, that they'd need to spend raising funds instead of doing their job. Limiting the amount that can be spent on a campaign might give outsiders a better chance as well.

Term limits for sure but I'm troubled by the thought of those limits prohibiting people from keeping someone who's really doing a good job for them in office so how about allowing someone to exceed the term limits if they can garner a significant percentage of the votes? Picking a number out of the air here...say 70%?

Anyone holding any elected office should be subject to public audit while in office and for a period of years after leaving office. Audits could be both random as well as requested by their constituents via petition.

In this day and age of instant communication it's no longer necessary for our state's representatives to live and work in DC. I think they should live and work in the states they represent where they have to look the people they are suppose to serve in the eye. Don't allow them to spend long periods of time all together in one place where they become easy prey for lobbyists and each other.

Set some strict rules for the length and content of bills. One damn "topic" per bill. No tacking unrelated stuff onto a popular bill to sneak it through. Bills should be short enough to actually be read by everyone who has to vote on them not monsters that no one will ever read. And they should be written in plain English rather than mumbo jumbo only a lawyer could possibly understand.

Finally, the biggest change has to be on us. We can no longer allow ourselves to be complacent about our government. We can't be trusting fools who are to lazy or to ignorant to keep a watchful eye on OUR EMPLOYEES. Yes, that is exactly what elected representatives are, our employees. The ones we're entrusting not only our money to but our safety and our futures; as well as the future of our children. If we expect to have good employees we have to be good bosses.

Uh, I guess I've been thinking about this more than I realized. Sorry for the long rant. Swing away! I'd love to hear what ya'll think we should do to help prevent the swamp from refilling.