H. L. Mencken, my current hero, once had an idea first published in the American Mercury, Aug. 1926.  As was often the case with this great American curmudgeon, how serious he was at the time could be a subject of debate.  As was also often the case, extrapolating his ideas from the early 20th C. into the early 21st C. is not as preposterous an exercise as one might think.
His idea was to abandon the manner by which we presently choose legislators and substitute the method used to select jurors.   Look at our present pathetic crop of Washington lawmakers whose acceptance level among the general populace lingers in single digits.  Mencken could well have been describing them when he wrote that "the worse curse of democracy, as we suffer under it today, is that it makes public office a monopoly of a palpably inferior and ignoble group of men."
So summons could go out, just as we summon prospective jurors, and perhaps a list of basic questions put to them to cull out the crass imbeciles and the clearly biased.  Then, according to the population of the territory, the proper number of representative's names could be blindly and randomly selected to serve their two-year term.  There would be no elections; there would be no re-elections; there would be no political contributions; there would be no campaigning.  There would be no favors owed, no party politics, no political billboards marring the landscape.
No one can tell me that these randomly selected grocers, teachers, shop owners, and assorted community commoners would do any less of a job than the scurrilous scoundrals we send to Washington these days.  I maintain, in fact, that they would do better.  Certainly, if we can trust jurors in a courtroom with our very lives and fortunes, we can put them to work crafting workable laws.  In complicated areas, they could lean on staff, just as the current idiots do.
Those selected would most assuredly be making a civic sacrifice, just as jurors do.  I would propose that they be paid at least the salaries they earned prior to their selection, if not a trifle more, plus travel and expenses.  Their bosses would be required to hold their positions open for them upon their return from service, just as with jurors now.
Here are the advantages, as Mencken saw it.  First, we would rid ourselves of the certifiably self-aggrandizing politician and put in his place a citizen with no more purpose than to do a good job.  Second, although some runts may appear in the litter, just as hardheads sometimes make it onto juries, overall we would significantly reduce the number of sleazy, pocket-lining lawmakers such as strut the halls of congress presently.
Lawyers, university professors, and religious leaders would of course be statutorily precluded from service.