Almost 80% off all cartels are death, with inactive capo's and members. 

Make cartels drop rep if their capo is inactive. 
This makes new active cartels rise harder on the leaderboard and makes it easier for players to find an active cartel. 

Even page 1 on the highscore has 2 cartels with a capo with "No Activity"
Page 2 i'm guessing about 60% is inactive already. 

I agree with your post. It's very unfortunate for active players to put in the time and effort to get the reps only for their capo to go inactive. It would be nice if after a certain amount of days of inactivity, leadership is transferred over to the next player with either a higher role or days active. 

Just so that it can give members the opportunity to remain in their current cartel instead of creating a new one right after and flooding the leaderboard.

That would also a possibility.