It would be nice if we could vote on matters directly. Switzerland does this and it functions fine. Lichtenstein also does this at the village level and it also works really well.

One of the reasons why we need representatives is that if everyone was proposing bills and voting on them there would be way too much to keep up with. The result would be that everyone would be a low information voter for the 1000 bills being proposed a week. In such a situation whoever could organize a voting block would win every bill. Who knows maybe that wouldn't be a worse form of government. Special interests would win but that's the same a our current system.

But enough comparing bad ideas. Let's talk about good ideas. We could elect representatives to do the work that goes into making proper legislation but we could vote on it. If that model would still give us too much legislation to consider we could set a limit for the number of bills that the one chamber of congress can produce. We don't need two chambers of Congress if we are effectively the second chamber. Say we get two bills a week. Internally they could propose however many they want, and then the two with the highest vote move onto us. Then we just vote on it directly. Could they play some games with what gets offered to us each week? Yes. But we'd notice.

I think this would reduce corruption because it would reduce the power of congress. They can't just do whatever they want with the people weighing in only once ever four years. The current setup is way too much control and way too little accountability for it. To reduce corruption you either need to lower one or raise the other or both. Maybe some other ideas can be had for raising accountability. My idea won't hurt in that regard because we will be getting more hands on with their work.

I also think this could work well at the state and local level.

For better or worse my idea would also re-instate majority rule. Republics like ours actually operate on minority rule because minority groups, whether ethnic or a narrow profession or industry, have more concentrated interests and so they play the game a little better in pushing candidates over the line and influencing them. If we feel like we need majority rule my idea would help. In terms of minority representation they'll probably continue to win the representative game. But the idea would essentially replace one house of congress with the people themselves and would favor majorities. So the system would represent both majorities and minority groups and force compromise. If we take Thomas Jefferson at his word, this was the intended outcome of the constitution. But as it currently stands majorities have really no political power because of this concentrated interest effect that plagues plain republics.