Lazy8 wrote:
Term limits are no panacea. Only an aware, active, and enlightened citizenry can make a republic work. However, term limits would improve such people’s chances of success. The current system is biased toward the ever-expanding, ever-more-expensive state. Weakening the political class would give the rest of us a chance.

That's the closing paragraph of this.

I agree that term limits restrict choice, but the game is rigged with the advantages that office and money bring.  People aren't voting for policy anymore (how could they, nobody running for office ever discusses anything of substance in detail), and when it's only personalities, there is (IMO) more damage to people from the status-quo.  It's not a burn it all down position, as much as one that forces citizens to consider who they're voting for a bit more.

 rgio wrote:
As I pointed out, experience tells us otherwise. I'm living the reality of what you propose, and I'm here to tell you that it sidelines talent in favor of mediocrity.


Poor choice of illustrative examples on my part, but I stand by the point: limiting the careers of long-serving legislators deprives us of their leadership. I could rattle off a list, people who represented a constituency that otherwise had no voice in politics. My list of legislators who made a positive impact is probably not the same as yours, but we both have lists. You can always speculate that someone else could have filled their shoes, but did they? That's why those people are renowned: they're rare.


You lost me there. Can you elaborate?


Imma rest my case here...


All your examples were elected. They were people chosen by their constituents.

Term limits restrict who other people can vote for. You need a better justification for that than the nihilistic "burn it all down and start over and it'll be better this time."

 Lazy8 wrote:
Maybe the pool is huge...you couldn't know because those in power never let others rise?  

 Lazy8 wrote:
Not sure I follow your Jefferson logic.  He's the poster child for term limits and moving around / up in government (while still making time to boff slaves).

Office	Years
Delegate to the Virginia House of Burgesses	1769-1774 (5 years)
Member of the Second Continental Congress	1775-1776 (2)
Delegate to the Virginia House of Delegates	1776-1779 (4)
Governor of Virginia	1779-1781 (3)
United States Minister to France	1785-1789 (4)
Secretary of State	1789-1793 (4)
Vice President	1797-1801 (4)
President of the United States	1801-1809 (8)

Reagan was 8 years as President and 8 years as Governor for 8.  FDR was Secretary of the Navy for 6 years, Governor (8), and President so long we have the 22nd amendment that... wait for it... CREATED term limits?  

Not a single instance of your examples would be impacted by term limits (minus the FDR issue already addressed).

 Lazy8 wrote:
What it changes is the person hired to do the job no longer has to raise money.  

Look...change allows you to find talent in unexpected places. Take Lauren Boebert,  a 36-year-old grandmother with a freshly minted GED who was elected to Congress.   Fresh perspectives and new ideas... that's what it's all about...isn't it?

For the record, I think we have much bigger issues (like how someone like Boebert can get elected) than term limits.  I think eventually, sticking around too long in one job hurts the party and those they represent a lot more than it harms the opposite side of the debate (see: RBG, Feinstein, Grassley, McConnell)

 rgio wrote:
The pool of people who have a genuine talent for governing is and always will be small. Forcing terms in office to be some arbitrary length means—as a practical matter—that the pool will be limited to either the independently wealthy, who don't really need the job, and those who can leverage that term of office into a private sector gig where whatever you did in government can pay off when you're done.

OK, I guess there's a third option: those who face a years-long disruption in a career outside politics but try it anyway. Good luck to them.


Would we be better off today if Thomas Jefferson had stayed on his plantation boffing slaves, or pursuing a career in government?

How about FDR? Reagan? Name your favorite face on Mount Rushmore.

Again, the pool of people who have a genuine talent for this is small. Term limits shrink it.


You'll get different people worried about money and primaries, and worrying about it more often, but not fewer. Nothing about term limits changes the cost of getting a message out to voters.

 ScottFromWyoming wrote:
A few thoughts came to mind:

- They are in Congress because they can't get a Senate or Governor gig.
- Is looking for another gig more or less distracting than running for office every 2 years?
- They qualify for a pension after 5 years in office and can collect as early as 50 with 20 years of service today.

If all of that is just too much risk for someone...they don't have to run.

The term limit policy would have to be accompanied by changes to policies and procedures to support the move.  The solutions may not be perfect, but is the result better than having "lifers" in government?  

Knowing they're leaving has the added benefit of people voting for their legacy.  Maybe more would get done when people aren't worried about money and primaries.

 oldviolin wrote:

It's a conundrum because if we get people to go with the understanding that they must move on after 5 terms in the House, that means they're out jobhunting at age 45 or 50. They'll absolutely spend the last two years of their time in office either plotting a move to the senate or governorship etc or lining up gigs with lobbying firms. Good for them, I guess, but if they have their eyes on a post-political career, that would call their ability to legislate impartially into question.

 ScottFromWyoming wrote: 
That is the strength and power of incumbency in a nutshell.

 ScottFromWyoming wrote: 
I don't think 1 term and done is the answer at all. Still, a reasonable limit would help I think. So, how many? 3 or 4? Then there's the second careers with the lobbies. Enough. How about some accountability for crying out loud! There must be a better way to promote good government and service to the country outside of what has become a seriously deficient and dysfunctional normal. I'm naïve and or idealistic. So sue me. lol

New blood every other term is a way to have unelected minions running more of our country than they already do. I'd love to have term limits when my side has a chance to win but in my state, there's a shortage of qualified candidates in both parties and a long long list of nutjobs with their hand in the air. The devil you know.

 Lazy8 wrote: 
I give you Joe Manchin.  A well seasoned veteran of more than the Senate.
 

True that, however it also provides a greater opportunity for a greater selection of choices more often.  Maybe a way for people such as libertarians and other POV's to actually get elected.

Presently the only consensuses being made are built on partly lines dictated by marching orders from entrenched leadership.  With that it is easier to build consensus on bad laws that are too complex (1000 + pages) to understand by even the most savvy and seasoned veterans.  These bills are not written by the individual legislators.  They are put together by secondaries or outside interests and presented in ready made packages, many sitting on a shelf for years waiting for an opportunity to become plausible.  That would be harder to do with fresh faces not bound by long standing deals that force agreement.  It would require more simpler and focused laws that are understandable in order to form a true consensus. 

It would also make lobbying harder to do with a constant turnover and too many new people to herd together quickly to make the lobbying as effective.

How many years does it take to come up to speed as a legislator ?  10 years ?  If so, that is too long.  Something is wrong where you have to make it a career in order to be successful.  Or is it just a well reinforced myth constructed by those already in power and reinforced by those in power in order to stay in power.

So what limits do you want? Do you want a congress full of newbies who have no idea about the details of how the process actually works? And I'm not talking about how the backroom deals work, but about the process for developing legislation, the process for taking legislation and turning it into policy through executive rule making (I mean you can't possibly write laws that cover every possible situation - that's why you have an executive branch). Someone needs to have a very good understanding of that process to write the laws properly. I mean there is value in experience just like there are problems with entrenched experience. 

If I understand correctly, the seniority system is set up by the political parties so you are really trying to tell them how to run their business. Ok, you do that for president so I'm not sure it should be off the table but merely saying you want term limits doesn't address what those limits should be to actually improve government functioning rather than screwing it up even more. 

I'd like to respond to all these, but I think I can sum things up in one reply: of all the things you're complaining about (gerrymandering, restrictions on voting, specific legislative fights your tribe lost)...none of these gets better with term limits. Separate problems, and term limits don't limit the damage they do.

Term limits is a way of giving up on the political process. Rather than trying to elect better representatives we just throw everybody out and start over, as if the problems they keep creating will magically get better if we change the people causing the problems without changing the dynamics that motivate them.

The one thing term limits addresses (does not solve, just addresses) is the power of incumbency. Incumbents still have an advantage in any election, no matter how many they face. And I'm not convinced that's even a problem; it's just the reality of voters dealing with too little information. An incumbent is a known quantity, a challenger is a roll of the dice. Another roll of the dice is another random outcome. And yes, as we keep seeing over and over, a million monkeys at a million typewriters keep finding ways to make things worse.

Being new at the game does not make you play it better, it makes you less effective, easier to log roll, easier to manipulate with promises of committee assignments or help on your agenda that evaporates as soon as you've done what was asked of you. Those seeking to abuse the power structures in a legislative body would much rather face a room full of beginners than a room full of seasoned politicians.

Everybody expressing hatred for politicians: I want you to think about your favorite political figure. Yes, you do too have one. Maybe it's Bernie Sanders, maybe it's Ron Paul, maybe it's Marjorie Taylor Green or Nancy Pelosi or AOC or one of the Kennedys or that one dude you had a bumper sticker for that one time.

Now ask yourself if the process would work better if they were taken out of the game after an arbitrary number of terms. The problem always seems to be who other people are voting for; but term limits takes that choice away from you too.

Magic bullets never work. There is no substitute for political engagement, the hard work of changing minds, the building of consensuses. Starting over ever X years makes the real work of political progress harder, not easier.

I go back and forth a bit on term limits. The perception seems to be that eliminating the “career politician” will help. I am not so sure.
.
I do think the House terms should be 4 years instead of 2. As it is, the end of the last campaign becomes the beginning of the next. They are constantly running for the office and, as a result, are more conscious of, if not consumed by, the political implications of their votes. Increasing their terms would at least mitigate that.

 Lazy8 wrote: 
We've had term limits here in Ohio almost as long and it seems to be working.  Things are more even now and things are getting done and even fixed.  Ohio was one of the few states where the legislature, not the voters legalized medical marijuana.  Maybe because Ohio is a pretty much a purple state it is working somewhat as intended.

I definitely hear you about your concerns about the bureaucrats / bureaucracy, but they have already long ago taken over our national government.  Congress has abdicated its power and the bureaucracy has long ago taken over and is what is really running things with party leaderships pretty much working hand in glove with it, imo.  Yes the federal bureaucracy does view the elected as merely the summer help who will come and go, while the bureaucrats remain, entrenched holding the real powers which were yielded to them by the complacent Congress.  Term limits would put new faces for them to deal with, ones that are not beholden to the bureaucracy that might actually take back their Constitutional powers and start making real laws that would limit the discretionary powers of the bureaucracy.  The long standing relationships and coziness would be gone making it more difficult for the bureaucracy to get away with things as it does now. Ideally getting re elected would no longer be the primary directive and actually legislating things might start happening again.

Granted, I can only hope for this but it is the one last major change that has not been attempted.  And the reason it has not been attempted is because the establishment within Congress has and will block any attempts to bring it on.  With them, McConnell, Pelosi and a host of others would be long gone and their stranglehold over passing and blocking legislation would also be long gone.  We can't even get good ideas that would benefit the whole to be brought up for a vote.  A vote that would would reveal our legislators thoughts and objectives.  Perhaps there would be less comprehensive bills and more direct and focused propositions put forth with more voting and even more position revelations. (read accountability)

 
No, the entrenched leaderships take away the choice from voters by the power of incumbency.  Your reason is a simple answer that ignores the realities of incumbency.  It naturally limits the abilities of challengers to unseat them.

Try this.

 Remember, an incumbent is a current officeholder who is seeking to be reelected to that office. Incumbent congressmen have excellent odds of being reelected. This is especially true of Representatives. As the Center for Responsive Politics put it, “Few things in life are more predictable than the chances of an incumbent member of the U.S. House of Representatives winning reelection.” In the past twenty years, the lowest reelection rate for the House of Representatives was 85 percent, and the mean reelection rate is more than 94 percent. Reelection rates in the U.S. Senate are a bit lower, but still impressive. In the past twenty years, the mean reelection rate for senators is 86 percent. (2)

It is difficult to square these high reelection rates with Americans’ overall low opinion of Congress.

Gallup tracking polls of Americans’ opinions of Congress over the past twenty years reveal that rarely do more than 25 percent of Americans approve of Congress and frequently their approval is down in the 14-20 percent range. In one recent Gallup survey, as few as 9 percent of people approved of the way Congress was handling its job. (3)

 Lazy8 wrote:
Representative Government? 

With both State Legislatures and House of Congress chosen by savage gerrymandering.
When each State may decide how easy or difficult voting may be? Different laws in different states mean different access to the will of the voters.

Here in Texas:
1. Gun licenses qualify as voter I.D., University Student I.D. does not.
2. You must APPLY for a mail-in, absentee ballot, including copies of your driver's license and last four digits of your social security number. Then you may, or may not get a ballot back.
3. To Return a completed ballot you must redundantly include those same copies again or the vote will be tossed out.
(In the last midterm election, Texas Secretary of State tossed out 17,000 mail in ballots based on lack of required I.D. material)
4. Fewer polling places in Democratic districts.
5. Law just passed that all rural counties must vote in their precinct on election day.
6. The Highest Legal Authority in Texas is an Indicted Attorney General, who's avoided trial for EIGHT years. He continually turns a blind eye to malfeasance behind the scenes. Texas won't even reveal the Name of the Secretary of State Elections office. 
7.  Laws are being passed based on Republican legal strategists advising GOP donors that conservatives must band together to limit voting on college campuses, same-day voter registration and automatic mailing of ballots to registered voters.

There is no 'Free' Market and we no longer have a truly functioning Democracy. Judges now operate Religious  courts, the value of life matters whether its in a womb or not and angertainment politics is our current governing style.

 Lazy8 wrote:
I would suggest that people invest less energy because they don't appreciate the importance, or believe they can make a difference.  Civics education has been dramatically reduced in schools, resulting in younger generations who understand less and less.  If I asked each of you here to recite the preamble of the Constitution...how many would start singing?  I would.  My kids would (because we bought the Schoolhouse Rock DVD's in the 90's).  But a lot of kids today can't recite it.  I remember singing it to myself on a 6th-grade test.  My kids were never tested on any of that stuff.

I agree with term limits.  I think we should establish districts based on logic, and remove the gerrymandered zones that all but guarantee victory for one party (in both directions).  I would like to see full transparency in political money.  Every cent should be traceable and transparent. I would also put term limits on the SCOTUS.  The idea of selecting younger judges with more politicized views who can "hold down" a position for 40+ years is not what they had in mind for a "lifetime appointment".  I think 30 years is too long.   Make it 20 for judges (5 Presidential elections)....12 years for Congress (6 elections)....and 18 years for the Senate (3 elections).  Nobody needs to be in DC longer than that.  If you want to stay...get a different job.   It would be really interesting to see who might run for President if their time in the Senate was going to end due to term limits in the 2024 or 2026 mid-term election.  We would never have ended up with Biden as President...he would have been but a distant memory.

The one thing that I wouldn't probably change, even though it foolishly gives way too much power to the inhabitants of sparsely populated states is 2 senators per state.  It's silly that Delaware, Wyoming, and North Dakota have the same number of Senators as California, Texas, and Florida....but that's part of the "checks and balances" design.

 Lazy8 wrote: 
Well, there's energy and there's energy. I'm definitely guilty of misspent energy but I do care about it. But again, energy.
I can't say I've always chosen my poison wisely. Now would be the time to invest ones self a bit more carefully but stop short of paralysis.
You make astute arguments and I intend to read about some of the conditional elements pro and con and form a more useful opinion. Brain is the new black?

I live with term limits. My state (Montana) enacted them 30 years ago.

The result has been to empower the bureaucracy. The people who oversee them come and go, but they remain—the keepers of knowledge of the process and policy. They run the show and the legislature provides the entertainment.

It also empowers party leadership and those in federal office. Deals get cut in Washington that affect local initiatives because the people in Washington will be there next year and the locals may not. Those behind the scenes know what happens when you yank the levers of power and those who wish to join them do as they're told...or they disappear without party support.

I can't say this is better. The chairs of the incumbent parties aren't elected positions, they're the leadership of private clubs.

And if you've been watching the MT lege this session (hopefully you've got more interesting things to do; I wouldn't be but they are doing their utmost to mess with me and mine) you'll see a lot of performative measures moving forward and real reform dying. Stuff that virtue signals to the basest fears and prejudices of their political bases but stands no chance of withstanding judicial review...because there are not enough adults in the room.

If the people are unhappy with their leadership they always have the option of tossing them out. Term limits take away a choice from voters. It's a simple answer to a complex question, and it appeals to people who don't want to invest the energy required to understand how representative democracy works.

 oldviolin wrote: 
No I'm not assuming that at all in this particular case. 

I'm just trying to find something worthwhile to flail away with instead of the usual partisan bickering which I'm getting real tired of, cuz that is all it is anymore and I know that.

I was going to start bumping this thread once a week just to get the idea planted from it simply appearing in the RAFT.

 kurtster wrote:  
Kurt please don't assume that a lack of posted opinions means a lack of notice about anything. That said, are term limits a good idea? Better late than never but
I'm afraid at this point it's pretty much a non starter with a sleepy non productive and polarized congress. The comforts are powerful sedatives. Currently I'm trying to decide where my attitudes and latitudes fit in with any of this. The folkscape has changed rapidly, don't you think?