I’ll be honest: to me, the idea of term limits always struck me as a rather statist proposal, in that the underlying theme is a necessary distrust in the electorate and its freedom to make its own choices. To a certain extent, I still feel that way: in theory, term limits are an artificial impediment to the will of the electorate to make their own determinations about who they choose to represent them.
Having said that, this is the same electorate that kept people like Robert Byrd or Trent Lott or Ted Kennedy in power long after their sell-by dates — and as a country, we’ve become, as political consumers, institutionally “manufactured” in such a way, be it through the mainstream press or our education system, that we can no longer trust the foundational information that we rely upon to become informed voters.
So. Do we fix that by addressing the root causes — language, epistemology, an understaning of Constitutional principles — or do we enact an artificial protection? And is such an artificial protection really as anti-democratic as it would appear?
A throwback to Athenian, Spartan and Roman government, the concept of term limits — or “mandatory rotation in office” — is actually a staple of democracy. Championed by Thomas Jefferson and numerous Founding Fathers, term limits were designed to “prevent every danger which might arise to American freedom by (politicians) continuing too long in office.”
“Nothing is so essential to the preservation of a Republican government,” George Mason — the father of the U.S. Bill of Rights — wrote in endorsing term limits.
Famed female historian Mercy Otis Warren — who was dubbed “the conscience of the American Revolution” — vigorously protested the exclusion of term limits from the U.S. Constitution, while accurately predicting the corrosive influence that career politicians would wield over the populace in their absence.
“There is no provision for (rotation in office), nor anything to prevent the perpetuity of office in the same hands for life; which by a little well timed bribery, will probably be done,” she wrote in 1788.
Frankly, our government has moved well past “a little well timed bribery.” Today, decisions in Washington are dictated almost exclusively by a corrupt pay-to-play culture in which powerful special interests (often taxpayer-funded interests) leverage their access to career politicians in order to expand their slice of the public largesse.
It’s a favor factory, pure and simple — and rather than governing on principle both Republicans and Democrats end up being governed by the spoils that come from dispensing those favors.
Of course, horse-trading and favor-swapping in a republican system is often considered a feature, not a bug.
So I’m curious: do you stand with the vast majority of Americans who favor term limits? Or are you uneasy with the idea, noting too that the vast majority of Americans would also say they favored things like McCain-Feingold, at least in theory.
Discuss.
The president was term limited after FDR served 4 terms. President Washington set the gentlemanly standard and it was generally understood that two terms and out was the honorable thing for the President. Once FDR abused the privilege, term limits were needed.
Why should Congress be exempt?
I am uneasy. Much like you, it is very anti-democratic, but I am falling out of love with democracy anyway. Because the electorate elects flaming idiots.
Still uneasy. Can we do a revolution instead? I am totally down with burning DC and the tar and feathers and pitchforks, 1812 style.
The other trouble with term limits is that you end up with lots of lame ducks who don’t have the fear of
Godlosing an election in their hearts.You have to determine whether this careerism is the result of a lack of term limits or if it’s something else keeping these creeps in office.
Say, gerrymandering (House) or the blasted Seventeenth Amendment, which was established by ::spit:: Woodrow Wilson ::spit::
In fact, getting rid of gerrymandering and the 17th might go a long way toward solving the problem right there.
I suspect that the founders who endorsed a structural mechanism to churn representation had accepted the argument that the masses, the demos, the polloi, haven’t the capacity (and won’t have), to correctly distinguish the wise from those lacking wisdom or feigning it. If this argument is correct a wise lawgiver would allow for the necessity, building a corrective into the processes of choice.
Absolutely FOR term limits. 12 years ought to be enough time for a Senator or a Representative to get done what he said he’d get done if you sent him to that God-awful place.
And get rid of the Platinum Parachute that these moochers enjoy.
If you left the jungle to go to the city where they try to make the jungle better, wouldn’t you try harder to make the jungle better if you new you were going to get thrown back in after X years?
Addressing the root causes takes time we may not have. Begging your pardon Jeff but I don’t think you’d treat cardiac arrest with a dietary regimen designed to control cholesterol.
Once the heart is beating again, then you talk root causes. Besides the salutary outcome of repealing Prohibition, the 21st Amendment demonstrated that the Constitution can also be un-amended.
I don’t think so. Not yet. The Tea Party people a lot have reintroduced the concept of a primary challenge to where even an ensconced hanger-on like Meghan’s coward daddy had to spend 20 million freaking dollars for the privilege of dying in office Bobby Byrd style.
Primary challenges are very very America. I think term limits would attenuate this noble impulse what is just now coming into its own.
Elbridge Gerry – not blaming him! – was one of the founders. Just sayin’.
Or, have the President and Congress’ salaries based on unemployment rate. If 5% is zero You get paid 100K per year for every .1% below. You pay 100K for every .1k above.
That town needs an enema.
Or, if you vote for a bill that you cannot score an 80% on a comprehension test for that bill, and the bill results in higher costs. You must pay into the fund to offset that cost, and surrender any personal property if necessary.
Fuck these guys.
Yes, term limits represent a very specific and direct limit on democracy.
But then again, so do written constitutions.
I don’t like the idea much, but I like perpetual incumbency even less. We have essentially zero experience with the former, but substantial history under the latter.
I’ve said before that I thought that term limits are anti-Democratic for the same reasons Jeff articulates above. The sad reality is that voters are not educated enough (in the specific, political sense, not in the general sense) to make wise, well-thought-out choices at the polls (anecdote: I had a PoliSci professor who told the story of getting a poker buddy looking for work elected judge by simply getting him to register in a district where the only other candidate had a hispanic name). I am also coming to detest the current slate of career politicians and think that re-election pressures lead to the sort of ideological “selling out” that leads to current tepid bunch of Republican legislators. This natural moderation may be seen by some as a feature and not a bug. I don’t. I live in a city (but not the district) that keeps sending Shelia Jackson Lee back to the House. That’s argument enough for term limits right there.
Term limits are just another way of taking the blame and responsibility off of the American people.
In a world full of ideal people, communism would work and there would be no need for laws at all, Mikey. I prefer to deal with what is real.
I’m somewhat ambivalent; the main drawback that we have seen here in California is that the permanent, shadow government and their very savvy lobbyists run circles around the newbie legislators. They have vastly more experience, know where all the bodies are buried, and really know how to get what the unions want. Of course they also seem to run circles around the non-term limited representatives in DC.
Yes…but in practice government has proved itself — at virtually every level, sadly — an artificial impediment to the will of the electorate to make their own determinations about how they choose to live under a reasonable and reasonably constitutional set of (hopefully minimal) laws.
Which brings us back to term limits smacking of just another flavor of top-down management. Unless, perhaps, that majority simply agrees to institute it, and they may. Would that make it ground-up?
If they’d simultaneously agree to hobble the lobby to about a percent of it’s current potency, we’d have a decent start. Add a sunset term to all laws, past and present, and throw in a termination clause for critters found to have tabled anything later found unconstitutional and we’d have a real chance.
…All of which suffer from the same apparent issue the term limit does, but all of which together would put us where we know we need to be to keep the place intact.
Alright then, if a senator votes for a bill that he hasn’t read (testing), he must read the bill aloud on the Senate floor naked.
“Which brings us back to term limits smacking of just another flavor of top-down management. Unless, perhaps, that majority simply agrees to institute it, and they may. Would that make it ground-up?”
Doesn’t the ratification of the Constitution amount to the same thing?
I was against term limits until Russ Feingold managed to get re-elected despite being seriously outspent by his opponent (this was before McCain-Feingold passed; unlike McCain, Feingold actually walked the walk in the 90s). Lesson: Incumbency trumps money.
I think we need some combination of no spending limits, term limits, longer terms (I’d like to go to a three-year election cycle), repeal of the 17th, smaller House districts, and maybe a revival of the Roman office of Censor.
I wouldn’t rule Ostracism or Proscription out of hand either.
Ernst,
Perhaps the selective use of Hemlock should be included in the mix?
If we do term limits, the limitation has to be long enough that we avoid the rise of a British style Civil Service establishemt–a corps of professional Congressional Staffers who never change, just “serve” different bosses as they rotate through, who end up really running things. Preventing 10+ term Congress-critters, though, does seem a good thing.
“Perhaps the selective use of Hemlock should be included in the mix?”
See?
Right there.
Would you have 2000 page bills if a Representative who voted for it had to answer specific questions about the bill on TV and the penalty for wrong answers would be stoning?
alpuccino, only if they promise to shut down C-SPAN.
Oh, uh, that (C-SPAN) was a response to the “reading naked” comment. Sorry for the confusion.
Civic literarcy tests and property qualifications for the electorate ought to be reintroduced as well.
Blake,
Poison? To paraphrase Mel Brooks, too Medici
Term Limits or Universal Sufferage. One or the other, but one has to go. I don’t see much movement on the latter.
Arguably, one of the reasons that left-wing wacko Alan Grayson is even in office is because Ric Keller refused to self-term-limit, after promising to do so. He made it through the primaries, and a bunch of Republicans and Independents elected to punish him by voting for his opponent.
Arguments for term limits go along the lines of: corruption and undue influence accrue in a downhill-rolling-snowball fashion, and those abuses of power should be cured by term limits or some other measure yet to be determined.
Arguments against term limits are similar: ability and effectiveness in office accrues, snowball-like, over time.
Term limits are just another way of taking the blame and responsibility off of the American people.
I disagree with this – at least to the extent that term limits could also be portrayed as telling the voting public ‘you need to pay attention because more of the same is no longer on the menu.’
In another sense term limits make it less about the person in office and more about what the person in office does.
In the meantime, we still, as a polity, face the question “who will institute such changes of structure or policy — how does it get done outside the reach or control of the sitting and self-interested Representatives We Have?”
Question: If 50 states, divided government, and a host of principles designed to limit the abuses of entrenched, non-responsive power are agreed to be healthy, wouldn’t term limits as well?
Jeff:
One thing’s for sure: Addressing language, epistemology, and an understanding of Constitutional principles is full time work at the very least. The nation likes its ease and crass political consumerism too much.
The left regularly brags about the malice its noble principles authorize it to inflict on the rest of us. For the common good and the gentle persuasion of reason.
Well sdferr, if we don’t do it ourselves at the ballot box, we better hope we get a Sulla and not a Caesar.
“Question: If 50 states, divided government, and a host of principles designed to limit the abuses of entrenched, non-responsive power are agreed to be healthy, wouldn’t term limits as well?”
Forgive me JHo, but I’m uncertain as to the thrust of the rhetorical? Is it your contention that if the original Constitution was corruptible, then it is necessarily the case that any subsequent attempt at repair of the very corruption is equally corruptible? If so, what principle will you have me derive? Is it a “nevermind” sort of thing? Or do you have some specific proposal to put forth in its stead?
I’m in favor of term limits, sdferr. They’re healthy in the same way prior constitutional bridles on government were intended to be.
Yet the Constitution is corruptible, and it’s imperfect to boot. Amend the blame thing and make it impossible for stuff to happen. It’s all experimentation in liberty anyway.
I guess since dueling is unlawful, I’ll have to grudgingly support term limits.
A thought: Do we suffer from too many jackasses or too few constitutional statesmen? Clearly it’s the former.
Limiting them to a single term may be pessimistic but it’s better for us than giving those few principled politicians an open-ended opportunity.
So then I take it you agree that the writing of the Constitution is “top down management”, as you put it, and that ratification was a ground up decision, one made in liberty.
I think so, sdferr.
Then and now, the Constitution was an exception to the norm. It was the progressivism of its day.
You might want to consider that pork barrel vote buying wasn’t an existential threat to the new republic when the Constitution was ratified.
No? Then what the hell were all those compromises over slavery all about?
The nation likes its ease and crass political consumerism too much.
Again, no. The American public routinely demonstrates that it works very hard at what it deems most important, from the most serious – our all volunteer armed forces, to our most trite – the great American lawn, we work hard and play hard when it matters.
And we accord the political realm that which we deem necessary, and nothing more. It is the political class that has grown complacent in their own voracity – hence their recoil at the rise of the TEA parties, and the great fear over the goings-on on the intertubes. Had they done an even marginally better job it is likely we would not even be having this conversation.
Exactly, B Moe. I’ve been shrieking about money all these months because the two party dichotomy simply isn’t. Behind the curtain it’s all one party action and it hinges on the power of centralization and money and the money of power.
The system is utterly stacked against liberty, choice, representation, and individualism and it is inherently and terminally so, right down to, and especially because of, our currency and its playing field. We are only having this national dialog today, as fragmented and rudderless as it is so far, because of the economy. That economy is closed and managed, and therefore antithetical to the principle of liberty.
Not only wasn’t pork barrel vote buying an existential threat to the new republic when the Constitution was ratified, the entire system of 2010 is a threat to the Republic today.
I disagree, ThomasD. Our underlying principles are these:
-We claim to be moderate conservatives in a ratio of roughly 2:1 to professed liberals.
-We are nearly two-thirds Democrat.
-We refuse to contend with the failures of massive federal programs such as the government’s educational system, enormous medical and prescription programs, the welfare state and a failed retirement program, and wholesale manipulations of entire financial industries, plus increasingly influence in productive markets.
-We refuse to shut down pork. We count our legislator a success when s/he brings back “federal money”.
-We tolerate progressivism. We entertain a nationwide malaise of press-run thought control. We increasingly despise serious religious identities. We cotton to multiculturalism because we’re indoctrinated against our own survival.
We’re schizophrenic. We’re not interested in solving problems nearly as much as we are in demanding our elected leaders do so for us. Without ever staring our state-bred national insolvency dead in the eye and making the first step to solving it.
I disagree, ThomasD. Our underlying principles are these:
-We claim to be moderate conservatives in a ratio of roughly 2:1 to professed liberals.
-We are nearly two-thirds Democrat.
-We refuse to contend with the failures of massive federal programs such as the government’s educational system, enormous medical and prescription programs, the welfare state and a failed retirement program, and wholesale manipulations of entire financial industries, plus increasingly influence in productive markets.
-We refuse to shut down pork. We count our legislator a success when s/he brings back “federal money”.
-We tolerate progressivism. We entertain a nationwide malaise of press-run thought control. We increasingly despise serious religious identities. We cotton to multiculturalism because we’re indoctrinated against our own survival.
We’re schizophrenic. We’re not interested in solving problems nearly as much as we are in demanding our elected leaders do so for us. Without ever staring our state-bred national insolvency dead in the eye and making the first step to solving it.
Two terms for Senators, three for Representatives, and once you’ve served in one you can’t serve in the other. It was never meant to be a lifelong career, and making it same has proved largely detrimental to our country.
At the time of the founders, the idea of a career politician would have been absurd. It was a part time job with lousy pay and benefits. You had to be away from your family and real business interests for months at a time and folks mostly did it out of a sense of duty.
Totally different from today’s environment.
Term limits = dangerous to representative government: here’s why–it takes an unelected beaurocracy to “run” federal government. Term limits guaruntee that the beaurocrats soon run the federal government in all but name only because mandatory rotation of office means a lot of time wasted by “newbies” learning “how things work.” And just when they have finally learned the ropes–they are turned out of office by statute.
We “lost” Vietnam that way–remember? (just when our soldiers had learned how to survive, they got sent home and replaced by some 19 year old without any experience . . . .).
Elections are their own term limits. Our problem has been that we’ve been prosperous enough for long enough that folks have stopped voting or engaging in any meaningful way in the determination of their own political futures. That’s how Obama won–remember?
#44 – All valid so long as you view the American people as a collective. Broken down into component individuals the ‘schizophrenia’ disappears.
But, on the plus side more people are beginning to push back against many of those things, but only because those things have gotten so bad that they are starting to intrude upon their peaceful little individual existences to the point where it is no longer comfortable.
The question is if/when all of this is perceived as rising to a long train of abuses among a significant portion of the populace, otherwise it will ultimately revert to business as usual as enough of those frogs adapt to the new temperature in the pot.
Not to say that I in any way like this cycle, just that I do not fault the current populace any more than Jefferson faulted the colonists for putting up with all that they put up with.
But, barring some structural changes, it is a cycle that is likely to repeat, with term limits being one such change.
In a world full of ideal people, communism would work and there would be no need for laws at all, Mikey. I prefer to deal with what is real.
I prefer reality too, scooter. And the reality is that term limits won’t stop the problem at all. The only way to stop the problem is for the voters to realize that they are the source of the problem, and all of the little tricks that get written in – such as a constitutional amendment to limit terms in the US Congress – won’t work if everyone who is supposed to be keeping an eye out ignores their job.
I’m not opposed to term limits, by the way. Congresscritters serve subject to rules that are laid down in the Constitution; without those rules, there wouldn’t be anything defining Congress.
Such things belong in the Constitution, I think, pretty much by definition. And Congresscritters are not going to put term limits there because they’re contrary to their own interests.
Stamping out cronyism and corruption in Washington by imposing term limits is like stamping out prostitution by replacing the hookers in a brothel with virgins. Either the newcomers won’t get the job done, or they will.
Throw the bums out! But not my guy; he’s doing a good job.
See: Democracy, imperfectibility of
I don’t care for politicians.
That’s a whole other windmill.
A big part of why the leviathan is so big is because the longer a pol stays in office, the more things he has a chance to carve his initials in. Short-term pols would be less likely to fall into that pattern.
If we manage to bring about term limits, it will at least force the critters to be more imaginative about lining their pockets in the limited time available.
ak4mc: Short termers might just speed up the pattern in order to get their name chiseled in granite. I don’t underestimate vanity.
Leaglize it just for Congress on the floor. CSPAN can cover it live. That ought to weed out a few.
I’ve already made my proposal: Two terms, total of all offices. Incumbents would be entitled to run for and be elected to a third term, except for the President; but, at the completion of the third term, the individual would be executed by firing squad, against the east face of the Washington Monument, at dawn so’s the sun’s in their eyes. If they really, really want it or are really, really dedicated there should be allowances.
It wouldn’t do any good, for the reasons several people have elucidated — it turns the Government over to lobbyists and bureaucrats. This would be different from today’s situation in just what way, hmm?
The only things I can think of that I believe might genuinely affect the problem in a positive way are (1) eliminating gerrymandering and (2) expanding the House.
It would have been hard for the Framers to eliminate gerrymandering because they didn’t have descriptive terminology for geometric figures; terms such as “compact”, “contiguous”, “convex”, and “aspect” weren’t applied to geometry until the Twentieth Century. We can describe the requirements properly now.
The House of Representatives is too small. The number of Representatives should be such that the State with the smallest number of eligible voters (“electors”) has three representatives. IIRC this comes to roughly 1100 Representatives, each of whom represents about 30K people or 12-15K electors. Size of the chamber is irrelevant. They can meet at RFK stadium until something new gets built.
Regards,
Ric
Term limits should be extended to the Civil Service: 10 years in any government position and you have to leave. I might not be averse to including active duty military in that mix either; the unelected bureaucracy is an even bigger menace than Congresscritters who at least have to face the voters.
This was to be a pub post but what the heck.
I’ve been thinking about how to change the House of Representatives to make it a body closer to the people it represents as it once was or as we at least think it once was. The one way mentioned is to increase the number of Congressmen so as to make them represent a smaller number of voters. Bringing them closer to those they represent.
I think there may be an inherent problem here. With a larger body there would be a tendency for power to flow towards the committee chairs even more than it does now.
Another proposal is to term limit all Representatives. This would have the effect of granting even more power to the unelected bureaucracy if it is possible for them to have more than they do at present. That power being a feature of the designs for governmental structure of the Progressives.
An aside.
To me anyway most of what we view as the problems with our political system stem from the meddling which have been done over the course of the 20th century by those we view as Progressives. They did so to change the system to what they thought it should be and at least the early ones did so in good faith though the motives of later ones are suspect. Undoing at least some of what they have done would go far toward fixing what is wrong.
Thinking on this caused me to look at another thing.
The setup for Representatives is that they represent a certain land area. When this was set up people didn’t move much. A district would tend to have a fairly homogeneous and stable population over time. The Representative would “be” representative of the voting population of a district. They also could more easily keep in touch with their district with the communications systems of the day. That, with the larger districts is less true now except in those heavily gerrymandered districts and then it only means they all vote for a Party not for a “community” with common interests.
I think of this land based representation as coming from an agricultural, agrarian society. It seems to flow out of the feudal system where the local “Lord” would be the one who represented his fief in dealings with the throne. There have been two more societal revolutions, Industrial and Information since. Is there a way to get back to where Representatives are more representative of their constituents but not “Balkanize” the country and keep the two party system, which is something that works to not divide up into warring enclaves?
Here is my idea. Say a State called “AA” has 7 Congressional Representatives based on it’s population. Call them AA-1 to AA-7. Each Party nominates someone to run for each of the 7 positions. Here’s the kicker. Every ballot in the State has all 7 races listed, however each voter may only vote in one race. Any. One. Race.
Bringing home pork for your district? What district? Got a “Rangle”, a “Frank”, a “Conyers”, a “Pelosi”? Maybe they can mobilize some special base to all vote for them so they win. Or maybe they piss off so many across a State that enough voters crawl over broken glass to send them packing.
I’ve been told that this proposal would cause the breakdown of the two party system by making for more third party wins in the House. I can see that there might be a few but they would have to caucus with a major Party to have any influence. This would be no more disruptive than what we have now with the like of “libertarian” Ron Paul running as a Republican to win election.
This doesn’t seem to need any Constitutional amendment. The whole election system is statute based not something enshrined in the Constitution and so could be done by a law. Below are the Constitutional requirements as regards election of members the House.
Once elected, a member of Congress shall be known forevermore only by his state, congressional district number, and years of service. Any attempt to revert to their prior names shall result in said prior name being chiseled in the east face of the Washington Monument.
By bullets.
Is that supposed to be a bad thing?
get rid of the incentives generated by the retirement benefits, and you’ll get better behavior…
A couple of ideas to throw into the mix. Get rid of seniority based committee assignments in favor of a random system which changes every election cycle. Increase the number of representatives on a scale closer to the ratio initially called for at the founding. Take ethics investigations away from the legislature and give it to the judiciary or some other body. Limit the number of dollars a representative can extract from the federal government for his home district/state as a lifetime cap. Consider giving various industries/interests seats in the house and then ban lobbying from that group. Consider putting a term limit on how long a lobbying agency can exist before it’s members must disband and never be able to lobby the government again.
No, this is as individual as it is collective, ThomasD, and the answer lies in your next point, which is correct:
We act locally; we compose ourselves collectively. We — individually — poll as moderate conservatives and we self-identify as moderate Democrats. This is the majority of America. As we go, so we go.
And, we perceive individually and we rise collectively. We elected a Marxist because we individually didn’t think or care as we should have.
We have only ourselves to blame. We got soft, forgot the part about eternal vigilance, enacted Departments of Education, Welfare, Social Security, various housing industries, medicine, and countless others that exist to this day, all of them bankrupt, because we find them well and good.
We spent ourselves into ruin. We’re barely waking now, and we’re less than two years from our last asinine tantrum, in which we elected a jackass largely because the press told us we so hated his predecessor.
and not figurative ruin neither the for reals kind
To add to Ric’s expanded House of Representatives idea, I’d add that the representatives don’t go to DC at all. Their offices remain in their districts and all HoR meetings are held over the internet. If you need TS or higher, they can go to the nearest military base and hold virtual meetings from there.
“10 years in any government position and you have to leave. I might not be averse to including active duty military in that mix either”
That would yield no good result with your NCO corps [your best senior NCOs are 14-16 years in the making], for sure – and you certainly would not get much a development of your officers either – after 10 years, you probably had a company command and are getting ready to be a BN XO at best… You would end up with 30 year old Generals with one year left on their time allowed in service. Command Sargeant Majors who are 28 years old and have had only 7 years as an NCO…
No thanks, I’ll pass.
Term limits are like any other constraint upon government power. Do not confuse individuals’ exercise of their liberties to live their own lives as they see fit (so long as they do not violate the person or property of another) with those same individuals’ exercise of power to rule over others’ lives when acting as a Voter or Juror (which, along with Notary Public, are arguably the lowest government offices in rank, despite the fact that they are rarely described as government offices).
The biggest problem with most term limit proposals is that they take the form of “no one can serve more than x terms in ___(office)___”. This means that for x-1 terms they get to be an Entrenched Incumbent, and in the final term, a Lame Duck.
Article V of The Articles of Confederation contained this form of term limit:
Note that there was no absolute limit on the number of years in Congress anyone could serve, only that they’d have to “come up for air” and leave that body for at least half the time.
I would like to reinstate something very much like that. I call it the Grover Cleveland Amendment. It simply states that anyone who holds the office of President, Senator, or Representative at any time prior to the final year of the term thereof is ineligible to hold that same office in the next term. No more running for re-election. (The year is to allow someone who is already a candidate for one of those jobs to fill a vacancy early without penalty; a few months’ service under such circumstances doesn’t really confer the advantages of incumbency too strongly.
I would also repeal the damned 17th Amendment, and explicitly remove Congress’ power to set dates for election of Senators, instead giving each state legislature the freedom to select a new Senator any time during the final year of the sitting Senator’s term, and to recall a sitting Senator by a 2/3 vote of one chamber of the state legislature and a majority of any other chambers. Senators must be seen as delegates of the state legislatures, not just Representatives with larger districts and longer terms.
As was demonstrated in my home state of Utah with Sen. Bennett, and more recently in Alaska with Sen. Murkowski, we already have a term limits process in place. Elections. They seem to be working fine at the moment.
On the other hand, if I have elected officials that I think are doing a good job, I’d like to keep them in their position as long as possible (as long as they continue to do a good job) because it’s damn hard to find a politician who can really do a good job. If we are forced to replace the good ones, we’ll probably get a bad one.
The people who are most interested in term limits are people, for example, who didn’t like Teddy Kennedy, and were mystified that Mass. kept electing him term after term after term. Well, as much as I disliked Teddy Kennedy’s politics and personal behavior, as a resident of Utah, that is none of my business. That’s the business of the people of Mass. I don’t trust ideas like ‘term limits’ that, when you get down to it, are an attempt to perform an end run around the electoral process.
So you didn’t read the thread, Owain?
70+ comments? No, I didn’t read the entire thread. If my post only serves to reinforce arguments already given, terrific. Great minds think alike.
Well, as much as I disliked Teddy Kennedy’s politics and personal behavior, as a resident of Utah, that is none of my business.
I wish this were so, but it just isn’t. What confounds this is the weakening of the states as distinct bodies and the power that long serving senators have through their various committee postings based on seniority.
I do have a good one. I’d gladly give him up if it also means San Francisco has to give up Pelosi.
…because when it comes to politicians, “good” is a relative term.
Makewi, I didn’t mean to imply that someone like Sen. Kennedy had no impact on those of us living out in the wilds of Utah. He did. Even so, as far as his election goes, that was in the hands of the people of Massachusetts. I’m sure out Sen. Orin Hatch drives a lot of people in blue states to distraction from time to time as well, but that is our business.
It evens out.
Thaddeus McCotter comes across as a good one. He’s probably fairly alone, though.
Senators were supposed to represent the States, and changing that was a mistake.
Comes across is a good way of putting it cranky-d. I’ve seen other apparent instances of McCotter shilling for his local auto-worker’s union, which comes across another way.
Well, I cannot argue with that.
It evens out.
My take is that it maintains the status quo, which is great if you are a sitting Senator, but less so if you are someone who would like to see these guys have less power and influence than they currently do.
I do understand where you are coming from, and I happen to share the discomfort at taking from you your right to choose the representative that you want. Term limits would be a limit on individual liberty.
No, they would not. They are a limit on the power people exercise over others.
As mentioned above, term limits should be imposed rather on unelected bureaucrats and lobbyists to keep them from “empire-building.” Failing that, another approach would be to regularly (and involuntarily) reassign career civil servants, say, every 3-5 years to keep them from getting too comfortable in their positions.
Here’s an even more radical idea: instead of concentrating power just in Washington DC, create capitals for all three branches of government. In other words, a “legislative capital,” an “executive capital,” and also a “judicial capital.” Having three capitals may not result in efficient government, but, hey, that’s the whole purpose–each capital will spend more time fighting with the others and not have time to screw around with the rest of us.