The way we treat legislators is broke. The legislative process works pretty well. If legislators had a little more support and a little more wiggle room, if the media would let up a little, and if legislators would occasionally have a retreat to go over ethical issues without the media present, that would all be helpful. The public doesn't care, doesn't know. But even though it doesn't care, it's hostile.
Legislatures are complicated human institutions.
I've been studying them for 30 years, and my major conclusion is that I don't understand them. So I don't expect the public to understand legislatures. I don't have any easy fixes. The public has got to move off its hostility and at least be neutral. I'm talking about civic education in which people get an idea about what representative democracy entails.