Term Limits: What Should We Do About Them? [231*7]

My Esoteric, The President, who is designated to execute the will of Congress, you say?

This one sickens me, because the Congress (at least the current one) does not execute the will of the people.

It is the job of the voter to put the right people in all of these jobs and kick the ones out who aren't performing, something Mr. Young notes we are currently terrible at doing.

This is impossible, when the filthy rich are buying ALL the elections.

I do love you writing.

Do your part to change the world: Don't reelect your congressman and senators. Only you can do it and that's about all you can do.

Not only are the wealthy, and especially corporations, buying the politicians for their own purposes, but we have gerrymandering. Gerrymandering can keep a particular party in the majority, or a particular politician in office for years, regardless of how people vote.

I don't think we need term limits. I think we need to take the money out of politics and overturn the SCOTUS decision on Citizens United and organizations of that kind. If we take the money out of politics (currently 60% of our Congress members are millionaires and became millionaires since taking office) I think many career politicians will retire sooner on their own because there will be no money in it to stay.

Further, no person who has held political office should be able to turn lobbiest for at least 10 years after they leave office. I don't know how long it is now without looking it up, but it's not long enough.

Get rid of gerrymandering and the Electoral College. Neither serves the people or democracy. Limit the amount of money corporations can contribute to political organizations and campaigns. Take the money out and many politicians will themselves choose not to die in office of old age.

Currently as of May 1995 term limits for either federal or state elected offices is unconstitutional. If everyone who qualifies to vote would do so and if we could get rid of gerrymandering, the election process would work much better and more like the Founding Fathers intended.

I wish some members of Congress would execute themselves! Starting with Tom DeLay who is still walking around free.

My Esoteric: In my state term limits have proven to be a fiasco. We had some long-term career politicians that got themselves into trouble, but prison took care of that – that and a couple of them died of old age. But someone got the bright idea thereafter to enact term limits. So far the result in a little over a decade was a tripling of the number of bills considered and acts passed. When that number topped out because of Constitutional time constraints, we have had a plethora – that’s oodles and gobs – of unconstitutional and special interest legislation passed. Our courts now are having to deal with the most blatant ones. Unless this is stopped, the courts will continue to have to deal with them.

What I noticed the most as a legislative employee: When the first freshmen legislators came in, they had the old hands to guide them, but as the old timers got term-limited out, the conditions began to deteroriate. About midway through the phasing out, the newcomers stopped listening to the old timers. After all career politicians were gone, the squabbling of special interests began to prevail, and corrupt practices began anew. In the last year or so, we lost at least one legislator accused of misuse of campaign funds, and our lieutenant governor has just resigned amid the same accusation. Each is from a different party and both claim to be innocent. There has to be some grounds for the charges or these men would have not have been forced out. The question is, were their acts done deliberately or in ignorance because they were inexperienced?

Okay, that’s just one state. However the state is a microcosm of the macrocosm. Is this a trend to come? I’m glad you tackled this subject near and dear to my heart. Voted you up++

Good Hub, and you should send your letter to the editor. I agree that we should get money out of politics, but would a Constitutional amendment actually solve that problem? Wouldn't laws limiting how much money a corporate or political entity donates be effective? It is hard to see what kind of results would come from an amendment banning political contributions; the 18th amendment seemed good on paper to a lot of people, but in hindsight we understand how much of a mistake that was. Who knows what companies might do if they are banned from donating to political campaigns, and where they might spend all that extra money?

Both useful and interesting as always. I must say though that altho we don't need brand new untried people in congress I do think their should be some carefully designed term limits. Too short a term and politicians cannot do anything useful.

But too long a term and they become so entrenched and powerful they are often not serving the people or addressing their. Just my opinion, not running for any office. Well ... I was once elected the Chair of the Faculty Senate at my University. :) Theresa

My Esoteric

I agree with your last sentence.

I don't agree on who is at fault in congress.

It has to be the incumbents, especially the nest incumbents.

If they haven't been successful because of the opposition, then they failed.

The state of the country is a direct result of the incumbents in congress, and we don't need term limits, we need more intelligent voters.

An incumbent should run on their record, and not go through a full scale election campaign. They were either successful in meeting their previous election promises, or they were not. It is not meaningful, to come up with new promises that won't be met.

If they blame the opposition then, they were ineffective in compromising. When the congress is in a fatal embrace of gridlock, allowing the president to be the de facto congress, then we need to send these congress people back to the private sector, and become one of us.

The congress is a team, and it doesn't matter which players are losing the game, it is the game loss that is important.

Thanks

bradmaster