IMO anything with a direct vote of the people will end up as spending wars between special interests with the funds to advertise.

I honestly wonder if sortition is actually the answer.

What's the opposite of congress?

Progress

There's a few ways in practice.

1. Court decisions are binding broadly. The conservative capture of the Supreme Court is political genius, honestly. They tend to have the final say regarding policy.

2. Federal agency rules are also broadly binding. EPA rules that limit greenhouse gas emissions, for example, apply everywhere in the country.

3. State legislatures are often less polarized, which facilitates a more productive legislature.

4. State agencies, like a state environmental department, mirrors its federal counterpart but is more localized.

5. Non-state organizations can get things done, though their interests are often limited and not necessarily in the interests of the broad public as state and federal institutions are.

6. International institutions can 'set the tone'. They may not have any power to actually do anything within a specific jurisdiction, but people within those jurisdictions can draw policy inspiration from international organizations and try for something locally binding.

Direct democracy—except instead of directly voting on legislation, voters vote on the desired effects of legislation and a metric for measuring if those effects are being achieved. The actual legislation is then written by specialists trained on effective policy implementation, who can adjust the legislation on the fly if it isn’t having the desired effect. Their mandate is limited by the associated metric—if they can’t meet the goals, they lose their mandate and the case goes back to voters for review.

A parliament.

The only alternative to an elected legislature (parliaments are different from congresses) is either direct democracy or one party rule.

Anarchy’s free association. We simply have them split and control their own part of land unless there’s agreements to use certain parts of common land. Would work for everything except global warming.