Could electing a speaker who didn’t seek the job fix Congress?

Could this be the thing that fixes Congress? Electing a speaker who didn’t seek the job?

Paul Ryan, the new speaker, is a policy wonk. He’s not repelled by the sausage the way Marco Rubio is, he likes to mix it by hand, without gloves.

He says he plans to use every bit of the animal, from the right wing to the left wing and all the parts in between. And being that his colleagues begged him to run for a job he didn’t initially want, he doesn’t have to show his strength by punishing anyone.

“A neglected minority will gum up the works,” he said. “A respected minority will work in good faith. Instead of trying to stop the majority, they might try to become the majority. In other words, we need to return to regular order.”

“Regular order,” that’s where bills are written and negotiated in committees the way we were all taught in school, instead of at a leadership gathering. But for that to work, the members of those committees can’t just march in with their minds made up.

“We do not echo the people, we represent the people,” he said. “We are supposed to study up and do the homework that they cannot do. So when we do not follow regular order &#8212 when we rush to pass bills a lot of us don’t understand &#8212 we are not doing our job.”

Not to put words in his mouth, but he seems to be saying because each member of Congress represents 700,000 Americans, to cut any member out of the process just because they’re not in the majority party is bogus.

And at the risk of appearing insufficiently cynical, I have to say, that sounds pretty good.