Oh, no, please save me from myself! (Term Limits)

The BBQ Pit
1

It’s that time, I suppose. Elections are coming up, and as they approach, term limits are a big topic in good ol’ central Pennsylvania. If I may be so bold, I’m sure it’s a big topic elsewhere as well. So let’s get right down to it.

If you don’t want your elected officials to be re-elected, don’t vote for them. it’s that simple. Yet here we are, once more in the middle of the silly season, hearing from bozos that are stumping for term limits for Federal and state officials.

So what’s stopping the voters from bringing in new blood? I don’t know, either. It is a statistical fact that 9 out of 10 politicians will be re-elected, either through intent or through apathy. Yet here we are, looking once more to the very people we thoughtlessly re-elect to implement limits on their own careers.

Surely you jest, I say. It is simple indeed to vote the bums out. Isn’t that the obvious solution? Is the electorate so incompetent, so inept, that they simply must vote in the same people repeatedly even though they purport to despise them? Obviously, the answer is yes.

We get the government we deserve. And if voting for pinheads we hate is it, well, that’s what we deserve. Why should they set limits on themselves? What incentive do they have if they know that the odds are overwhelming that they will be returned to office?

Term limits are not the answer, and they never were. An educated electorate is the answer. Unfortunately, it’s something that doesn’t exist. So suck it down, voters. As usual, you get exactly what you want. And I have no sympathy for you. My sympathy is saved for my son, who will have to pay for your failure to use your Goddamned heads. Not that he won’t do the same, of course, but there’s always hope. I think. Thank God I’m an Independent, at least I can do my part to cancel out the idiot vote, paltry though it is.

2

I agree with you.
Does it make me a conspiracy nut to note that the very politicians who benefit from a stupid electorate also run the schools?

3

They’re unconstitutional for federal positions. See US Term Limits v Thornton.

4

Term limits - the idea that we’d get better laws if, every X years, we simply replace everyone in Congress.

I know that a similar concept of replacing long-term employees with systems knowledge with contractors (foreign or domestic) has worked wonders in the IT departments I’m familar with. Particularly when the contractors are then replaced every 3 years.

Joe

5

You would think that people would eventually realize that, even though we are terming out our state offices and replacing them with new blood every few years, there’s still “gridlock” and the “same old stuff” from the state capital. Maybe, just maybe,** it’s the system** and not “bureaucrats” or “fat-cat senators”?

No, it’s much better to get rid of our most experienced legislators AND our freedom to vote for whomever we want. Yay!

6

Freedom to vote for whomever you want? That’s a polite fiction in the US system. You have the freedom to vote for whoever you want, as long as you only want to vote for one of two people.

7

“Throw the old bums out!” the young bums screamed.

8

Because it would be sooo much better to have dozens of candidates on the ballot. This way a candidate could win with a small percentage of the vote, as long as that percentage was just slightly larger than anyone else’s percentage.

9

Well, we like our guy just fine, thanks. It’s your guy we need to get rid of.

10

You can vote for whomever you want if they register with a party and get enough signatures to get on the primary ballot.

And if they don’t win the primary, hey, there’s always write-in voting.

11

Whether it is right or not, our Congress runs on an informal seniority system. The new people learn from those who have been in office longer and eventually the newbies can get appointed to committees that they may inflluence to the benefit of the state they represent.

Call it paying your dues or call it getting an education. It is how Congress runs, how things get done. It is the committees that steer the agenda, and the money, not the final vote on the floor.

When a person says they want term limits they are saying they want to continually elect people who do not yet know how to get things done and replace them once they start to learn. And as Baracus says, it’s all about getting rid of somebody else’s long term representative, never your own.

12

The problem with your theory, Airman, is that it assumes the primary factor in determining your vote is the person whom you’d like to hold the office. This is incorrect. Proper voting, you see, is determined by the perceived likelihood of the candidate for whom you cast your vote actually winning the election. As the statistic quoted in the OP clearly indicates, this criterion heavily favors the incumbent, and thus, so goes the vote.

At least, that’s what the idiotic circular argument that comes up whenever the subject of voting for third parties is broached would have you believe. Seems the idea is that A) an election is a game that you win if the guy you’re backing makes it into office, regardless of who it is, and B) people who lose elections don’t do so because people don’t vote for them, but because there exists a predefined set of “People Whom People Don’t Vote For,” for whom it is deterministically proven that nobody will vote.

Makes no sense as applied to voting for incumbents, either, but apparently people do think this way, so there’s at least one explanation.

13

The silliest of all is the one-term limit for governors of Virginia.

14

Since there are only 2 realistically electable people on the ballot and one is them is already fixed with no input from the public, what is one to do when they want the incumbent out, but replaced by someone with similar views? Suck it up, and vote for the other guy, who they hate in the hopes that his tenure lasts “only” 1 term?

15

Even incumbents have to win party nominations. It’s unusual, but sometimes they lose.

16

Part of the problem is that in the majority of states, Congressional and state legislative districts are created by the state legislature, and very often are drawn with the intent of giving as many incumbents as possible “safe” districts from which to be re-elected. Instead of the people choosing their legislators, it’s now that the legislators choose their constituents.

17

Or we could abandon the silly idea that the way we count votes is the only proper way to do it, and use an instant runoff system. It’s not hard, and it means voters have the option of voting for the candidate they prefer without giving up their right to vote for a candidate who may actually win.

18

Term limits= stop me before i elect them again. Because I will.
As long as the best and most committees are determined by tenure, it is stupid to vote your politicians out. Let the righties pass laws that get rid of their politicians. That would be a good idea.I approve.

19

I’m in complete agreement with the OP. The only term limits we need are regular elections. If people want to vote the same guy back into office, then let them. Why assume anyone becomes less eligible to hold office by the fact that he’s already won an election or two?

Third party supporters just don’t get it. Nobody is doing anything to keep Libertarians or Greens or Socialists out of office in the United States. The reason they lose elections is because the majority of people don’t vote for them. Democrats and Republicans get elected because a majority of people do vote for them. The insignificance of third parties in American politics is not some defect that needs to be fixed: it’s a basic reflection of how democracy works - if you can’t attract enough votes, you don’t get elected.

20

Ok, I agree with everything you’ve said here, except your first sentence. You believe all this, and yet third party supporters are the ones who don’t get it?

“Oh, gosh, I sure do hate that the two-party system dominates American culture. Golly gee, whatever can I, the mild-mannered voter, ever possibly do to subvert this inevitable truth that voters don’t vote for anyone besides Democrats and Republicans? Obviously the vote is predetermined, and so, because nobody will vote for third parties, I sure as shit shouldn’t, because the only way my vote counts is if I’ve voted for someone that I’ve decided will win based on my psychic fucking conclusion-assuming circular-logic-supporting retarded-ass elementary school belief system.”

Yeah, it’s the fucking third parties who are at fault for the electorate being comprised of logic-deficient morons, and their supporters are fools for not going along with the status quo, because obviously it’s impossible for anything to ever fucking change anywhere, least of all in the United States. Never in history have people who actually believed anything ever accomplished jack shit, so the entire idea of the cause is hopeless from the word go.

You really believe that? From what I know of you from my interactions with you here, LN, I honestly don’t think so. If I’ve misinterpreted you, I apologize.

For those that do advance this argument, though, please ram it right straight the fuck up your ass, because people like you are the reason for the seeming permanence of the very “truths” you so piteously decry.