I dunno, I’d rather have Term 3 of Obama than Trump. A third term for Bill? Sure. Then no GWB.
A Third Term for Ronnie would have been a mistake, no doubt, even for his fans, but I doubt if he could have done it.
The Cruz proposed Constitutional amendment would limit anybody to 3 terms in the House and 2 terms in the Senate (this is total, not just consecutively), with somebody filling a vacancy for half of a term or more having that count as a full term. Note that any terms that started before the amendment is ratified would not be counted towards any limit; also, no terms served in either house of Congress would be counted against serving in the other house.
Term limits would have deprived California of the most effective senator we’ve ever had. One who holds the record for the most popular votes in any Senate election in history (7.75 million). Screw that!
Data are useful when discussing the value of things. Not seeing any cited here, yet.
There have been a few studies of the effects of term limits on states that instituted them early. Some of that data is summarized in this article from WaPo. The basic conclusions are that: a) it doesn’t affect spending, but b) it does enhance the influence of lobbyists.
I’m not sure that these results are desirable. One can argue that having lobbyists more in control of what legislation is proposed, and (perhaps more importantly) how it is written is Not A Good Thing. Compounding that tendency with the fact that the legislators themselves are inexperienced, but are the ones voting on the results, probably is asking for trouble.
Can anyone who has watched California politics in the last 20 years truly say that they think the state’s Legislature runs better than it did in the past? That’s a tough argument to make, I think. 
The first since 1947, by that analysis, when the 22nd Amendment took away your right to elect a President to more than two terms.
If you want to deal with the Jeffersonian principle of avoiding stagnation at the top, do something about gerrymandering.
Mostly because the term limit for the president doesn’t actually do all that much. Most presidents wouldn’t make it to a third term if they tried. Even in countries without term limits, democratic heads of government generally seem to last about a decade before fizzling. A few last longer, but most don’t. And that’s our experience in the USA too. In the century and a half or so where the USA didn’t have term limits for the president, only one president actually managed to make it longer than eight years. Several other presidents tried, but it’s actually kind of hard to keep such a high-profile office for that long. You get tired of the stress (even our young presidents are not exactly young men), the voters get tired of you, your party rivals get tired of waiting for their bite at the apple, etc.
In what way does it work well?
“Several other presidents tried, …” Name them.
Grant comes to mind.
Theodore Roosevelt served three and a half years of McKinley’s term, then was elected. Four years later he tried again. If elected in 1912, he would have served almost three full terms.
Theodore Roosevelt in 1912 (his first term was almost a full term, and would have counted as such under the 22nd Amendment). Ulysses S. Grant came pretty close to winning the Republican nomination in 1880. Harry Truman started laying the groundwork to use his exemption from the 22nd Amendment in 1952 but withdrew fairly early. Even Woodrow Wilson tried to maneuver himself into the Democratic nomination in 1920 (this was mostly just sad; the poor guy even thought, later on, that he might be able to run in 1924).
One of the myths about presidential term limits is that there was a vaunted, saintly, noble tradition of presidents retiring after two terms and never ever even considering serving longer than George Washington, until the mad socialist FDR pissed on our national heritage and stole himself a third term. It’s not very true, but you hear variations of it a lot.
These are certainly terrible outcomes, I agree. I’m not sure, though, that they are tied to term limits. Corrupt people are going to be corrupt with or without term limits. Their corrupt acts may take different form, but they will still act corruptly. Inept people will act ineptly with or without term limits.
The undertones I’m (perhaps erroneously) detecting in your post is an implicit acceptance that, beyond lawsuits, accountability is tied almost solely to not getting reelected. The people that this applies to shouldn’t be getting elected. But I think we voters have just accepted that politicians are not going to care about them and so will have no feeling of internal accountability. These sorts of people shouldn’t be getting elected. That they are is what I see as the real problem, not necessarily term limits or lack thereof. It seems as if we are just trying to keep monsters or potential monsters in line, while trying to get as much benefit and the least detriment out of their actions as possible.
I take one of the traditional positions that while government service is commendable, it’s also one of if not the most corrupting influences in society. The corruption increases as one goes to a higher and higher position in government. And given that, it would be prudent to not let a person remain in any one position for too long save for perhaps lower positions that are of little importance if they are going to have a continued life in public service.
I think a big issue that makes term limits seem like a bad idea and leads to a lot of the problems you brought up is the sheer amount of power the government has over our lives. With all that influence, changes in that influence can be quite exhausting. Perhaps our society has gotten so complex that we need this amount of government influence, but I would be interested if we could get by with less government influence as I think it would address many of the issues you brought up.
This is why I’m a little weary of the “professional politician” trope as it paints what I see as the issue a bit one-dimensionally. Length of time is not the whole issue, though it is certainly part of it. As I said to another post, I think government service, while important, is one of if not the most corrupting influence in society. It’s a huge part of what our nation was founded on. So if we are going to have people who serve for a long time in government, I think it prudent to move them around often, particularly as we get to the highest levels of government. This can of course become corrupted, and has at least since the time of Jackson, but that is a separate issue.
Another aspect is the quality of people we voters are putting into office. Political ambition has traditionally been seen as a trait of an easily corruptible politician that voters should avoid voting for. Such people will act in accordance with this ambition first and foremost instead of perhaps secondarily, tertiary or not at all. I see this and other issues as much more important than simply keeping out people who have served in the government for a long time for the reason you stated.
One thing I notice about the traditional usages of term limits is that it was not a life-long limit. For instance, an office might have a limit of “no more than 3 years in six” or something like that. So someone could serve a three year term, serve in another office or retire from political life for three years, then serve in that same office another three years later. Save for perhaps president, I find this method a bit better than life long term limits.
I think both have to be done rather than one or the other. But even more than that is that we need to get stronger voter turnout. Voter turnout topping out at 60%, and then only in presidential elections, makes it that much easier for stagnation to occur. It’s hard to make real conclusions about the makeup of an area or the effects of gerrymandering when you have 40% or less voter turnout in the local and state elections that matter much more than national elections.
^This.
I might be convinced to accept a compromise on term limits IF we had a better voting map, and IF we the voters had a simple way to make exceptions to the term limits for very popular elected officials. That is, if 50% + x% of voters vote for the incumbent, they get the position, term limits be damned.
I’m not sure what x should be.
It’s disappointing that if we’re going to summon the political will to amend the Constitution to fix our political culture we’re not going to do something more ambitious than, sigh, term limits.
Cmon, Ted! Here are some ideas:
- A German-style system that mixes local representation with national representation for geographically dispersed interest groups
- Rejigger the Senate; keep the equal state representation, but add a decent number of nationally elected senators as well (again, representing geographically dispersed groups)
- Multi-member districts: either expand the House (ideal) or expand districts and have each elect several reps using a non-first past the post method.
I’m convinced, but cannot prove, that if we want fresh blood and fresh ideas in Washington, making elections more representative (and less safe for incumbents) is a much better way to go than term limits. Voter participation would improve as our votes had a chance of mattering - for most voters in most places, they don’t, and can’t, because of structural issues having nothing to do with the poor character of our elected officials.
TLDR: term limits address a symptom, not the cause.
(My ideas are greatly influenced by / ripped off from Hendrik Hertzberg’s essay “Let’s Get Representative”)
My “never gonna happen for obvious reasons” dream scenario would be invalidating election results that do not have a specified voter turnout rate. But this has so many obvious pitfalls that I cannot imagine it ever being prudent.
There were, by your counts, two presidents who actually tried, but not for a consecutive third term (Roosevelt and Grant), one president who might have tried, but didn’t (Truman, who himself didn’t actually try, but let his name be entered into the New Hampshire primary), and one president who I’ve never heard ever attempted to run (Wilson; what’s your evidence for your statement?).
That is hardly “several.” Two actual attempts out of 34 who had the opportunity, and neither for a third successive term.
And another term of Teddy would have been fantastic, way better than Woodrow Wilson.