The limits of term limits?
A great many people are crying out for term limits as a remedy for Congressional corruption and power trips. And there are certainly many advantages to the idea.
But certain recent actions of the Democrats in Congress have made me consider one problem I’ve not seen mentioned in connection with term limits: once a member of Congress is in his/her last permitted term of office (which in the case of a senator would last six long long years), what remaining check would there be on his/her voting behavior? Ideologues cut from the moorings provided by the need to be re-elected would be even less beholden to voters, not more, and therefore essentially unanswerable to them.
For a team player, and/or for an idealistic person, there would be a check: the departing Senator would not want their political party to lose the office to the opposition (and to the opposition’s political ideas and goals).
The real answer is electoral district boundaries that put every single one of them in danger of losing their seat every election. The narrower the margin, the more likely the politician occupying that slot will actually pay attention to the people he, she or it (and yes, I have doubts that some of these people are in fact human. Their behavior argues against it) is supposed to be representing.
It’s truly amazing the kind of dedication to the electoral district shown by a politician who could lose office if a few people voted differently.
Yes yes yes. I have been arguing this for year! (I have no proof of that, however). Term limits would do nothing to curtail corruption or limit Federal power. It would increase the incentive for politicicans to take what they could (a “bust out”, if you read Instapundit), make as many friends as they could, and take a lobbying position after. Wash, rinse, repeat.
The only thing that would reduce the corruption is limiting the amount of money and the scope of jurisdiction of the Federal governmnent. If there’s no money to hand out, it greatly reduces the incentive to lobby and the ability to buy favors.
for years*!
People always make populist arguments against Congressional pay, by the way. They find ways to get paid. I would rather we paid them $1million a year and had the strictest ethical code instead with draconian penalties. That would attract bright/talented people without all of the shenanigans. As it stands, we attract wealthy millionaires and people who would-be millionairies through illicit scheming.
I don’t like the idea either. It’s a too-easy answer to complex issues about personal and cultural values. I also think there is value in having people with longer experience in national and international issues. Think of McCain on the surge vs Obama on any issue.
I think Sen. Nelson of Nebraska has auto-term-limited with his kickback, so it will be interesting to see if he swings back to the center to try to hang on, or veers left to vote more in line with his own inclinations.
He’s run dubious TV ads defending his health care vote that have made him unpopular with other Democrats in the state for draining the party coffers.
Its that baby and the bath water thing. Maybe term limits on voters who repeatedly make horrible choices.
Bullseye, neo. Furthermore, term limits help to induce corruption. If a legislator knows he’s nearing the end of his term, he can try to feather his own post-legislature nest by playing pat-a-cake with special interests.
If he doesn’t know he’s out of a job until election night, he might not have gotten around to making such provisions (especiallyl given the shortsightedness of so many of our legislators).
We have term limits here in California, and they’re a disaster.
The solution? As pointed out upthread, eliminating gerrymandered safe districts, and an informed electorate that imposes its own ad hoc term limits on malefactors.
Yeah. I know. Good luck with that. A guy can hope…
Following on Occam’s Beard’s comment, California’s term limits have had a distinct unintended consequence.
It takes time to present your position to a legislator, because there are so many positions to consider on any given issue and because they have so many issues to consider. This takes mail/phone correspondence and personal meetings, usually orchestrated by your well-paid lobbyist.
When a legislator is replaced you must make your position clear to the replacement. All of this takes more time and money. Who has the most of both? The well-heeled special interests have the most of both. These are the same special interests whose influence was supposed to be curtailed by term limits.
It is helpful to know, in addition, that at least half of the contact with legislators involves keeping something harmful from happening through legislation, rather than making something happen in your favor. Most business interests are happy simply to be left alone, which legislators seem unable to do.
Even in the complete absence of corrupt intent (if such a thing can be contemplated) it simply costs money to keep the legislature informed to the extent that they don’t inadvertently do too much damage.
The concept of bonding elected officials to meet their published specific campaign promises is worth a hard look. Public officials that violate the implied contract that they make with their constituents should be held personally liable. Personal bonds should be large enough to hurt if called.
I’m not a fan of term limits either. I agree that gerrymandering has to go and transparency is the key to holding legislators accountable. If enough light is shed so that the truth is known… there’s nowhere for a cockroach to hide.
Term limits are a bad idea because the possibility of re-election keeps some check on them. A better idea would be to raise the minimum age of office. I think the minimum age for senators should rise to 45 years. That would make another Biden, Ted Kennedy, Thurmond or Byrd an impossibility. No one should spend a lifetime in the Senate.
“Yes” to all the above. The problem we have is that the only way any of these things will change is if the people who benefit from them push for change.
Who in their right mind expects that? Politicians are the epitome of the welfare class.
Instead of term limits, consider ‘no self-succession.’
Term limits – I say yes, but not the way that most of us think of them. I think allowing someone to be re-elected as many times as the public wants (except the US Presidency) is okay.
However, I would like to see “term limits” on how often a senator or congressman can “chair” a commitee. “Chairing” a commitee (or sub-committee) is where a lot of the power resides in Washington. It seems to me that some get control of a committee and never let go!
Easy one that-limit the franchise to those who pay more in taxes than they recieve in cash from the gov’t including wages from same. Pick some of these same at random from those free to volunteer and pay them and empanel them to veto bad legislation or impound bad appropriations back to the treasury. Any legislator who has three bills he voted for vetoed-career over.
Direct democracy didn’t work very well,but if the public thinks a law they are almost always correct to that extent.
…public thinks a laaw bad…
Occam’s Beard: about gerrymandering—back when I was first blogging, I was interviewed in May 2005 by Norm Geras, here. In answer to the question, “If you could effect one major policy change in the governing of your country, what would it be?” I answered, “Put an end to gerrymandering.”
I think term limits would be a bad strategic move. The critical problem isn’t turnover, electoral or otherwise, but rather the amount of concerns in which the government has interest. No Congressman can be conversant in the wide array of issues he’ll deal with in any term. So he needs a staff. The staff members often serve multiple members over a career. None of this is objectionable; though it’s perfectly rational, it has accreted into the monstrosity we see today. The increased turnover would mean the staffs doing more direct legislating than they already do. Term limits will only increase the unelected control of the legislative branch by staff.
I’m surprised to read Bill West’s comment [though I don’t know from CA]; I’d’ve suspect that, rather than spending repeated sums for re-lobbying, the lobbyists would just pay the staff expert for the relevant committee or member [probably the former would be the most likely to grow in power under term limits in DC].
I’m not a fan of term limits for other reasons, however in this case we do have states (local only – no Federal term limits) that have enacted them and can compare so it isn’t speculation.
For instance California – not really a hotbed of corruption or people going off willy nilly at the end of thier limits. Tennessee has them on our Governors and it works well and heck, we have had them with our presidents for ages. It doesn’t reduce bad decisions or certain other influences and you do occasionally run into someone who will go for it all, but there is a HUGE difference between an individual or two and institutionalized (say compare California and Chicago – bad decisions but for VERY different reasons).
The problems more arise in what is mentioned above with continuity, experience, and (in cases like a governor) loosing good people for no real reason. The last, however, is more like the the issue you bring up – really more of an individual issue than a systemic one. Someone else already talked about the continuity/experience issue.
I’m still against them because I think that they fail in many other areas hard enough that over all we would be hurt fairly bad – one of the problems we have had in getting to this place is narrowing down the decision making process (I rather suspect that, once again, a political party is not fully grasping the consequences of their actions with regards to how this change will effect them when they are not in power).
In this narrow case I think that evidence clearly shows that term limits *does* reduce corruption. It’s not perfect but it does make that one area much better. However that very same evidence shows that it doesn’t slow systemic issues with ideology (which, frankly, is what people are really wanting to change – however if they weren’t as corrupt I think we would have had Obamacare months ago – see California. They do not need reconciliation – they need the conviction of their beliefs to choose a traditional filibuster and take full ownership of the bill) and would do great damage to many other areas.
“Term Limits” means your representatives suck, but I love my pork-delivering reps. More pork for me please, not you.
Instead of limiting the terms, limit the SENIORITY. After two terms, the congresscritter can take a third term of seniority and descend to freshman status again if there is a fourth term OR accept a demotion by one term. Thereafter, the critter is given that choice again upon reaching what would be FOUR terms of seniority, and the demotion is not to freshman but to one-termer.
What about a random lottery drawing for all incoming congressmen that decides what district they will represent for that term? So some guy connected and elected in Georgia might get stuck making decisions on issues in Oregon, where what hes owed and what others owe him are less likely to come in play. Just a thought.
I think our hostess and Kate have the right idea–do what Iowa, I think, does–require districts to be delineated on set and specific geographical requirements. How likely this is when ending gerrymandering would affect certain entrenched interests, racial and otherwise, is another question, but certainly it would put more districts in play.
We’ve had term limits in Michigan for some years and the results have been as predicted: Lacking legislators with the time to gain experience and expertise in an area, lobbyists and special interests gain much more influence. It has also produced a form of musical chairs-someone goes from the state house to the senate to county commissioner and so forth. My guess–I don’t have any statistical evidence–is that it probably reduces the number of people actually running for office.
Besides, I’m opposed to most ideas that take power from the electorate. We have a method already in place for getting rid of politicians who do a bad job: elections. Term limits are a way that the voters happily relinquished power they have and ought to exercise.