Article from The Nation: Our Democracy No Longer Works and the Problem Is Congress

Solutions:

(1) Citizen-funded elections such as described in the current bill sponsored in the House by Democrat John Larson and Republican Walter Jones, in the Senate by Democrats Dick Durbin and Arlen Specter. That bill is a hybrid between traditional public funding and small-dollar donations.

(2) Ban members of Congress from working in any lobbying or consulting capacity in Washington for seven years after his or her term. Better yet would be banning them from employment of any kind with any corporation doing business with or lobbying the government.

(3) Overturn the recent Supreme Court decision allowing corporations unlimited political contributions. Some of this could be done by legislation but ultimately a Constitutional Amendment will be necessary and Congress will never write one, so the people must, by convening a Constitutional Convention (as provided for in the Constitution). This could be dangerous as a convention could make ANY changes to the Constitution (but they would still need 38 states to ratify), but the much greater danger is the status quo as the article link above makes clear.

My next effort here will go one step further.