I figured this topic had probably been beaten to death in the past, but a quick topic search didn’t turn up anything recent.
With the Congressional Approval rating being the lowest it’s been in 14 years (both parties scored poorly), are Term Limits a viable cure for Capitol Hill’s woes?
If so, how would such a bill ever make it through the very body it would be affecting the most? Beyond that, would it then require constitutional amendment?
If not, what are the positives of the status qou? What makes these select few individuals so irreplaceable?
As a personal qualifier statement; I am not pointing my finger at either party as I’m equally disgusted with members from both sides of the isle.
Term limits don’t make sense to me. If someone is doing a good job, let them stay there. If someone is doing a bad job, let his consituents throw him out. Granted, there is a problem with incumbents having a financial/familiarity advantage over their challengers, but that’s a different topic.
And when you think about it, isn’t the argument for term limits implicitly assume that everyone will become corrupt and have to be replaced, like produce? Which is a rather pessimistic view of human nature…
Congress will never approve a term-limit amendment. The only way it could happen is if 2/3rds of the states forced Congress to convene another constitutional convention.
We have term limits; they’re called elections. I’m against them in any way, shape or form.
It would take a constitutional amendment. Various states have included members of the U.S. Congress in their term limits, and that element has been shot down by the courts. (I would support an amendment repealing the one that limits Presidential terms.)
Why is it that politics is the one field that people think knowledge and experience counts for naught? You wouldn’t get rid of an experienced welder, programmer or CEO simply because they’d worked for you for eight years.
Before someone takes me literally - I’m against term limits, and I stand foursquare and stalwart for elections, apple pie, motherhood, and the American Way.
May not be an attractive view but it is the current one, and IMHO mostly accurate. Term limits would make it much harder for the influence peddlers to ply their wares plus some of the long term animosity would dissolve as well.
As an institution, I feel that Congress may be broken beyond the repair made possible by the normal election cycle.
Term limits serve no purpose except to ensure that a delberative body has no (or extremely little) “institutional memory.” It is a way for groups that are currently out of power to gamble that they will have a chance to gain power, not by mounting a platform that will persuade the electorate to shift positions, but simply by hoping that their new candidate will be more charismatic than the other party’s new candidate.
Actually, the effects of term limits would be to magnify influence peddling. The more new members enter a deliberative body, the more likely that lobbyists could get the ear of someone who was naive regarding the ways that lobbyists actually work, making it easier for them to controll an unwary congresscritter.
As to long-term animosity: we have direct historical evidence that the opposite is true. The most hostile Congresses demonstrating the most intransigent refusal among the members to work together has occurred since the massive party turnover in the mid-90’s. With no tradition of having to compromise, all decisions have been made on nearly strictly party lines for over a decade. This was not true in previous periods–even when one party or the other controlled both houses–since the post-Civil War era. Previously, party power shifts tended to be gradual and membership was stable in both parties; it was the massive infusion of “new blood” that brought the “long term animosity” into Congress.
I’m not sure “institutional memory” is all that positive when weighed against fresh ideas and agendas. In a normal occupation experience is always a plus, these positions are anything but normal occupations.
I don’t like the idea of term limits either. If someone is doing a good job, the voters should have the right to keep him/her. If someone is doing a bad job, there’s already a remedy for that.
I don’t think the POTUS should have a term limit either.
Fresh ideas like flag burning amendments? You do realize, I hope, the the majority of truly stupid bills have been passed in the house with the most new members and killed in the house with greater stability?
What sort of “fresh idea” have you seen arising from short term congresscritters? Even the few intelkligent ideas presented in the Contract on America originated among people who had substantial lengths of service in Congress.
Agreed. (That’s twice in two days-- someone better check the temperature in hell!!! )
No, only that more people will become corrupt than won’t, or that there will be less overall corruption with term limits than without. Human nature is what it is, and I suspect most people are corruptable. If we want to miniminze corruption, then I think term limits make sense. But if we want to maximize freedom, they don’t. I like to maximize freedom.
Not only does tenure build experience and knowledge in an elected official, it also serves to build power and influence. While this has the potential to be a bad thing, it also can be a good thing for the local constituents.
Under the rules of unintended consequences, term limits remove the ability of the elected officials to build experience, knowledge, power, and influence. Into that vacuum, un-elected career staff/advisors would step in. They would become the “power behind the throne”. Term limits would turn the elected position into a revolving door, while the un-elected staffers would potentially remain in place building power and influence and doing the real damage. All without the threat of getting voted out.
Think of the power that J. Edgar Hoover had as an example.
Or, perhaps, that such institutional memory will shift behind the scenes. This is something like the influence peddling you describe in your next post, but I think it goes beyond it into something more pervasive and insidious. By turning over a House seat every eight years (say), we minimize the experience any given member can accumulate, and we increase their dependence on longtime background operators who are insulated from the electoral process. When Joe Congressman gets dumped, Bob Congressman comes in, and hires Joe’s right-hand-man Dick Chiefofstaff to maintain continuity of organization and procedure. Joe, and then Bob, become even more clearly figureheads than they are now, sitting on top of an organization that doesn’t change below them. Obviously, this is a problem today, but I think it would become even worse if you had institutionalized turnover under a term-limit arrangement.
I tend to disagree with this. If I know I’m going to lose my job in 6-8 years anyway no matter what I do, why do I need to be a good boy? I’m going to grab all I can!
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