Give Me The Case Against Term Limits

I think it's pretty obvious that a good portion of the economic crisis we are now in is a result of career politicians of both parties having their hands in the till. I see no way of preventing any politician, (M or F) from eventually giving in to the enticements available to them daily......other than strict term limits. If no Congressman or Senator could serve more than 2 terms, & be barred from working in any business directly related to his/her prior office for 5 years after they leave office, I think it would go a long way in stopping corruption.
The details would have to be carefully worked out & Congressional committees who have to stop running based on seniority, but I haven't yet heard a GOOD argument AGAINST term limits??
(Anyone have one?)

Because the people have the right to elect the people they want to elect.

The thing to fix is the systemic advantages incumbents have in the election process.

ErikLaurence wrote:Because the people have the right to elect the people they want to elect.

The thing to fix is the systemic advantages incumbents have in the election process.

& it would also be nice if the oceans were filled with beer & the sidewalks were chocolate.....But until all that happens I think term limits is the only specific problem solver I can think of!
Give me some specifics: How do we "fix is the systemic advantages incumbents have in the election process?"

12 years maximum for everybody in govt. period. unless running for president or vp. However if you do, You MUST first resign your current office BEFORE you run for higher office.

Duengeon master wrote:12 years maximum for everybody in govt. period. unless running for president or vp. However if you do, You MUST first resign your current office BEFORE you run for higher office.

I disagree & would limit it to elected officials.

There is no case against limits. It's the only way we can clean house in DC

Devil505 wrote: If no Congressman or Senator could serve more than 2 terms,

I'd limit senators to one term or shorten their election cycle.

This is something that could be easily done. There was no Presidential term limit in effect until 1947!

Twenty-second Amendment to the United States Constitution
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United States of America
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Amendment XXII in the National Archives

The Twenty-second Amendment (Amendment XXII) of the United States Constitution sets a term limit for the President of the United States. The United States Congress passed the amendment on March 21, 1947.[1] It was ratified by the requisite number of states on February 27, 1951.

Franklin D. Roosevelt, who served from 1933 to 1945, is the only president elected to more than two terms. Under the 22nd amendment it would be possible for a president to serve two full four-year terms after having assumed the Presidency by means other than election for a duration of up to two years. However, no president besides Roosevelt has ever served more than eight years.

Devil505 wrote:

Duengeon master wrote:12 years maximum for everybody in govt. period. unless running for president or vp. However if you do, You MUST first resign your current office BEFORE you run for higher office.

I disagree & would limit it to elected officials.

O.K. lets throw in everyone in government. Also throw in Nepitism and multiple positions. And to go one step further as with AIG, No politician may receive a campaign donation from ANY individual or corporation. If they do, then the politician may not be involved in ANY debate or voting that may affect said individual or corporation. (Just like jury duty, If you work for Wal Mart and a case comes up in front of the court You cannot be on the jury due to conflict of interest) If a politician receives a campaign donation from ANY individual or corporation or foreign govt. that politician may not be involved in ANY debate or vote for or against that entity. Fell free to add more to restrict government not the people.

Duengeon master wrote:O.K. lets throw in everyone in government.

Having worked for the government for most of my life, I feel that would not be a good idea. Most organizations/businesses rely heavily on the "Old Pros" who have been around for years & everyone benefits from the long experience. Their years of service do not automatically make them more susceptible to corruption as do virtually any elected official I can think of. Holding elected office should be a short term privilege & not a career.

I always used to believe that the people should decide whether or not a politician stays in office. Then I realized that the only way to get rid of fat cats like Ted Kennedy are term limits. He has so much clout that any new senator is almost powerless against him, especially if he wants to get anything done. Most people from Massachusetts (NOT ME) vote for him because of his name and his power in the senate. I think that Ted Kennedy is a poster boy FOR term limits.

mr1precision wrote:I think that Ted Kennedy is a poster boy FOR term limits.

That's funny...I would have picked Alaska Senator Ted Stevens!

Edit: As much as I like Sen. Kennedy, I would be willing to give up a good Senator to avoid a Ted Stevens any day. We'll stipulate that no party is immune from corruption & the chances of corruption increase dramatically with time in office. Whatever the limits we end up with, I think it's the only realistic way to ever really diminish the chances of our representatives selling their votes.

Duengeon master wrote: If a politician receives a campaign donation from ANY individual or corporation or foreign govt. that politician may not be involved in ANY debate or vote for or against that entity.

I don't think that's practical.... in any event you could simply limit contributions from individuals of say like $10 to one candidate. Assuming 125 million voters in the last presidential election that's more than a billion for them to run their elections. This way poorer people will have chance to actually make contribution that are meaningful and large contributors will be eliminated.

I'm in a rare moment of agreement with Devil on this one. Term limits for congress critters. 3 terms for reps, 1 for senators. No bouncing back and forth between chambers to reset the limit clock, that is a total of 3 terms as a rep and 1 as a senator, that's it.

Against limits on non-elected officials. Also against imposing limits on employment after a stint in elected national office. If someone wants to become a lobbyist straight out of congress, more power to them. With term limits in place, the benefits of hiring from congress will be reduced and the sway any hire out of congress has with membership at the time will wane quickly. Also, with term limits in place, there should be less institutionalized acceptance of "soft" corruption between govt and lobbyists, such as that most recently exposed with the decades long, slow cook banking and financial sector efforts on many congresses and WH administrations. It should also lead to less "game playing" with procedural rule changes in congress designed to hurt the out of power party. With less entrenched interests and bald party loyalty politics and the prospect of potentially frequent changes in majority power (or even the rise of a viable third or fourth party!) the game in each house of congress should hopefully clean itself up as a matter of practical self-interest.

A bit off topic but:

Hard money campaign contribution limits are, in my opinion, infringement of political speech and free association. I get what they are intended to do, but they simply do not accomplish the intended goal. The elimination of "soft money" contributions to campaigns was spot on. A similar change should be made for donations to political parties, if it hasn't already happened. But hard money contribution limits only do one thing, shift that money that would have gone to a candidate or party into more "creative", far less transparent, and for more worrisome (from a corruption stand point) issue and advocacy groups.

This is not to say these third party groups should be eliminated or that their funding should be subject to the same "hard money" transparency rules that candidates and parties are subject to, I think it would be a violation of constitutional protections to do that. No, I'm simply saying that given the choice, we should be encouraging people to give as much as they wish directly to candidates and parties rather than give them no option but to seek political voice and power through these alternatives. Especially because, as we have seen with groups like MoveOn, Swift Vets for Truth, ACORN, and others, the wall of separation between the groups and the parties/campaigns that is supposed to exist is often extremely thin. And even if just barely present, still leads to all-to-easily credible claims of collusion, corruption, and even outright election fraud casting shadows upon all involved and eating away at the integrity of election results.

By forcing the big ole pot of money and political power to these opaque groups it invites the very corruption the limits were intended to reduce, and it is even more difficult to sort out or to hold people accountable for it given its involvement of multiple parties, the state and even city level decentralized nature of the groups (and thus the investigations), and the fact that dispersed, hard to pin point campaign or election corruption doesn't hold the national attention like a candidate caught and singly responsible for corruption in the campaign.

In either case, the money is in the game and the poor are just as disenfranchised as ever, one system just encourages money to pool in transparent campaigns as opposed to opaque third party advocacy groups.

Devil505 wrote:

mr1precision wrote:I think that Ted Kennedy is a poster boy FOR term limits.

That's funny...I would have picked Alaska Senator Ted Stevens!

Edit: As much as I like Sen. Kennedy, I would be willing to give up a good Senator to avoid a Ted Stevens any day. We'll stipulate that no party is immune from corruption & the chances of corruption increase dramatically with time in office. Whatever the limits we end up with, I think it's the only realistic way to ever really diminish the chances of our representatives selling their votes.

Ted Kennedy is the fault of the citizens on the commonwealth. They get to elect who they want to elect. That is called democracy.

Now if you want to reduce his influence (and hence get Massachusetts to vote him out) that can be done without gutting democracy by eliminating the seniority system in congress. If committee assignments were randomly assigned, and then reassigned every two years Teddy would have no more clout than any junior senator.

This solution does not require a constitutional amendment.