Jamelle Bouie makes a case against legislative term limits.
We have legislative term limits here in California and it’s not great. You end up with government by bureaucrats and lobbyists.
The solution to legislative calcification is to make challengers more viable. Make incumbents have to work to get re-elected.
If by break it you mean get rid of corrupt pieces of garbage before they can suckle on the public tit for life, enriching their cronies, then I am all for it being broken…..can we break the Supreme Court also the same way? cuz I am thinking government jobs for life shouldn’t exist.
Congressional term limits might fix congress. I rest my case.
Congressional term limits should have always existed.
Term limits are not required. Competitive districts are necessary.
I feel like making a 24 year maximum works best. term limit for senators 4 terms. For representatives 12 terms. It’s 24 years. Could also apply to the justices.
Post it once, shame on you. Post it several times, shame on us?
How could we tell?
We have a mechanism for term limits. They’re called regular elections.
We need to stop talking about term limits. Congress will never limit itself.
First, term limits violate the basic democratic principle that voters should be allowed to choose their representatives. Nonsense. They will still have a choice, just not “Cynthia Brown” for 40-years.
Second, and related to the first point, is the fact that term limits do not discriminate between effective and ineffective lawmakers. This is clearly opinion and not based on fact. The term “career politician” is nowhere in the Constitution.
Which leads us to our third point: Term limits reduce congressional capacity and destroy any incentive that might exist for a lawmaker to develop policy or procedural expertise. Oh my, has this writer ever watched CSPAN and a hearing on technology? If they don’t have inventive to perform, they shouldn’t be re-elected!
To deprive a legislature of expertise and knowledge is to create a vacuum that will be filled, since the legislature still needs to legislate. Again, nonsense. This is why they have staff. Many staff have significant experience and guide new legislators all the time.
Term limits are a good way to create change. They are a good way to solve the problem of political competition, complacency and politician bribery.
Because congress is working *sooo* well as it is
Congress is already broken.
I see plenty of comments here giving informed opinions about why the idea of term limits being bad is bogus. Our government is already run by bureaucrats and lobbyists with or without term limits. That’s a result of late stage capitalism, not term limits. We need term limits, competitive districts, mandatory voting, and making voting days national holidays. A democracy can only function for the people if the people regularly participate.
Weird headline with an already broken Congress. But saying it probably won’t fix anything is good.
Yeah – it’s doing so great now. We sure don’t want to “break” it.
As an Aussie looking from the outside in, I think term limits stop good people from doing good things for longer. The objective should be safer and better competition.
I’d say:
1. Ranked choice voting like we have here gives outsiders a chance, without losing your backup vote to stop the nutters from getting in.
2. Age limits so your candidates can relate to the future of the country to make better decisions when in office, force older voters to choose future leaders and stop people with dementia and fear of change holding the status quo.
3. Compulsory and easily accessible voting like we have here, it’s really stops the fringe idiots from getting in.
Term limits remove experience. I mean if you wanna set like 15-20 years or so, that’s cool
But you can’t have inexperienced people coming into leadership.
Then it deserves to be broken.
If not term limits, we should explore mandatory retirement ages for congress and the judiciary.
And all the talk of “expertise” is just really congressmen, lobbyists, and the revolving door.
Uh? Is it working now?
It’s already broken. What a stupid statement. Almost as stupid as the median age of law makers in this country. Shit is embarassing. Feinstein fiasco really drove it home. And the whole Mitch thing ? Give me a break. Most of these fuckers shouldn’t have a driver’s license, let alone be in charge of lawmaking. Disgusting.
Term limits would strengthen the parties and weaken individual politician’s ability to make independent choices.
Term limits would also reduce accountability to the voters, and would mean more frequently having to choose between candidates with little-to-zero voting record.
Don’t threaten me with a good time.
No it wouldn’t lol. You just don’t make the term limits only 1 cycle. Make it like 3-4 cycles for the house and 2 or 3 for the senate. But don’t make it 40 year cycles.
Term limits are not a solution. Expand the House and eliminate single member districts.
The problems in the House shown to it being unrepresentative do to single member districts having the affirmative consent of roughly half of a 750k member district. Less than half of we consider that many voters are simply holding their nose while voting.
By expanding the House, each district would at least have fewer unrepresented persons. By expanding and eliminating single member districts, you increase the accuracy of representation and leave unrepresented persons statistically negligible.
Congress’ problem is partisanship, and the power party leaders hold over their members. Transferring that power to inexperienced members isn’t going to solve the underlying problem. Creating more seats in smaller districts means elections are cheaper, and thus, the party is less necessary. It also means more parties having a seat and thus less chance for a single party to control the House and thus the House is less likely to be governed by a single person and instead function more like a democratic body..
* Age limits
* RCV/STAR
* Weeding out corruption by doubling down on FEC, SEC, FTC (to prevent high profile corporate consolidation), and IRS funding and overturning Citizens United
* Uncapping the House by pegging a district to 1/3 the population of the smallest state
* Voting in all House districts at-large, so gerrymandering is not even a possibility and there is always proportional representation. We did this up until a hundred years ago, but like capping the House, this was banned by the House simply bwcause of rising minority populations that would’ve seen fair rep if this continues.
* fucking Admit DC, PR and the other territories
* edit: and as blackbart1 said, PUBLICLY FINANCED ELECTIONS. Every citizen gets a set amount to donate throughout campaign seasons. They can burn it all at once or gradually repay people. **If money is speech in elections, then it doesn’t make sense that some people get more speech than others.**
* edit 2: As saltotart said, ban lobbies. And also PACs.
Boom, I just solved all the issues with the House. Outside age limits, this all just requires majority votes and the will to end the filibuster in the Senate.
Term limits are not the answer. They invite corruption. You have good, passionate leaders cycled out and the infinite revolving door of corrupt actors with private sector positions lined up otherwise.
It might; but Congress needs to be broken.
Sometimes you have to break something to fix it.
Does anybody here feel like that would be a bad thing? If there is one thing that I think we can all agree on, it’s that congress is a mess and probably could use a little breaking.
Congress is already broken.
???? It’s already broke. It’s named Congress not Progress ahahaha ok I’ll see myself out.
Fly her apart then!
Honestly, I see these as anti-democratic. The problem is money in politics and campaign financing. Term limits would just make what we already have worse: a never ending election cycle; candidates who are constantly campaigning more for attention than for policy; and speed up the revolving door from Comgress to lobbyist jobs or positions on boards of directors at corporations.
Then break it
Can’t break it any worse. Congressional and judicial term limits are needed.
Good. Break that shit down to a modern version.
The answer is to dramatically expand congress. If the House had kept up with the population, or was similar to the number of constituents per representative in most countries, there would be well over a thousand members. More members equals less incumbent advantage, more diversity and cheaper elections.
Trump protagonist here. We agree.
“…Might Break Congress…”
Too late.
Term limits are necessary, but I believe upper age limits are just as vital. We cannot be a brave or agile country when run almost exclusively by geriatrics. If we want real change and growth, we need upper age limits to bring the average age of our leaders down to the average age of those who created the declaration of independence and constitution.
I’d rather have a firm age limit than term limits. You still need some older folks around who have been there forever with the institution knowledge. So you can still have a 40 year career, if you start at a young age like AOC, but you’re done by 70.
Maybe Congress needs to be broken
Bold to assume that Congress is not already broken
I don’t want term limits, I just want age limits.
Term limits are just the start. No more special gold plated health insurance, they get Medicare, just like regular American’s get…..let’s see how they handle that…
An educated, informed and experienced congress is required to manage and represent our large country in this complex world. Ever work for an incredably stupid manager?
Term limits are a conservative/ fascist talking point to maintain power with ever changing line of morons that can be completely controlled by the wealthy.
Nope, the problems are the unaccountable, unlimited money and gerrymandered districts that lead to unqualified dysfunctional leadership.
Uncap the House.
Term limits might have some benefits, but most often they are a red herring. So many comments about corruption. Love to see the dislike of it, but sometimes term limits are something lobbyists use to take the focus off of campaign finance reform, a/k/a legalized bribery. Golly, wonder if that is where the corruption is? The totally obvious problem that is corruption incarnate that used to be illegal? Anybody?!! Naw, best to do nothing about that to the point no senator’s staff ever hears of such things from voters. And yes, I check sometimes with them. American voters are effectively pro-corruption. Because that works so well in the Russia.
49 comments
Jamelle Bouie makes a case against legislative term limits.
We have legislative term limits here in California and it’s not great. You end up with government by bureaucrats and lobbyists.
The solution to legislative calcification is to make challengers more viable. Make incumbents have to work to get re-elected.
If by break it you mean get rid of corrupt pieces of garbage before they can suckle on the public tit for life, enriching their cronies, then I am all for it being broken…..can we break the Supreme Court also the same way? cuz I am thinking government jobs for life shouldn’t exist.
Congressional term limits might fix congress. I rest my case.
Congressional term limits should have always existed.
Term limits are not required. Competitive districts are necessary.
I feel like making a 24 year maximum works best. term limit for senators 4 terms. For representatives 12 terms. It’s 24 years. Could also apply to the justices.
Post it once, shame on you. Post it several times, shame on us?
How could we tell?
We have a mechanism for term limits. They’re called regular elections.
We need to stop talking about term limits. Congress will never limit itself.
First, term limits violate the basic democratic principle that voters should be allowed to choose their representatives. Nonsense. They will still have a choice, just not “Cynthia Brown” for 40-years.
Second, and related to the first point, is the fact that term limits do not discriminate between effective and ineffective lawmakers. This is clearly opinion and not based on fact. The term “career politician” is nowhere in the Constitution.
Which leads us to our third point: Term limits reduce congressional capacity and destroy any incentive that might exist for a lawmaker to develop policy or procedural expertise. Oh my, has this writer ever watched CSPAN and a hearing on technology? If they don’t have inventive to perform, they shouldn’t be re-elected!
To deprive a legislature of expertise and knowledge is to create a vacuum that will be filled, since the legislature still needs to legislate. Again, nonsense. This is why they have staff. Many staff have significant experience and guide new legislators all the time.
Term limits are a good way to create change. They are a good way to solve the problem of political competition, complacency and politician bribery.
Because congress is working *sooo* well as it is
Congress is already broken.
I see plenty of comments here giving informed opinions about why the idea of term limits being bad is bogus. Our government is already run by bureaucrats and lobbyists with or without term limits. That’s a result of late stage capitalism, not term limits. We need term limits, competitive districts, mandatory voting, and making voting days national holidays. A democracy can only function for the people if the people regularly participate.
Weird headline with an already broken Congress. But saying it probably won’t fix anything is good.
Yeah – it’s doing so great now. We sure don’t want to “break” it.
As an Aussie looking from the outside in, I think term limits stop good people from doing good things for longer. The objective should be safer and better competition.
I’d say:
1. Ranked choice voting like we have here gives outsiders a chance, without losing your backup vote to stop the nutters from getting in.
2. Age limits so your candidates can relate to the future of the country to make better decisions when in office, force older voters to choose future leaders and stop people with dementia and fear of change holding the status quo.
3. Compulsory and easily accessible voting like we have here, it’s really stops the fringe idiots from getting in.
Term limits remove experience. I mean if you wanna set like 15-20 years or so, that’s cool
But you can’t have inexperienced people coming into leadership.
Then it deserves to be broken.
If not term limits, we should explore mandatory retirement ages for congress and the judiciary.
And all the talk of “expertise” is just really congressmen, lobbyists, and the revolving door.
Uh? Is it working now?
It’s already broken. What a stupid statement. Almost as stupid as the median age of law makers in this country. Shit is embarassing. Feinstein fiasco really drove it home. And the whole Mitch thing ? Give me a break. Most of these fuckers shouldn’t have a driver’s license, let alone be in charge of lawmaking. Disgusting.
Term limits would strengthen the parties and weaken individual politician’s ability to make independent choices.
Term limits would also reduce accountability to the voters, and would mean more frequently having to choose between candidates with little-to-zero voting record.
Don’t threaten me with a good time.
No it wouldn’t lol. You just don’t make the term limits only 1 cycle. Make it like 3-4 cycles for the house and 2 or 3 for the senate. But don’t make it 40 year cycles.
Term limits are not a solution. Expand the House and eliminate single member districts.
The problems in the House shown to it being unrepresentative do to single member districts having the affirmative consent of roughly half of a 750k member district. Less than half of we consider that many voters are simply holding their nose while voting.
By expanding the House, each district would at least have fewer unrepresented persons. By expanding and eliminating single member districts, you increase the accuracy of representation and leave unrepresented persons statistically negligible.
Congress’ problem is partisanship, and the power party leaders hold over their members. Transferring that power to inexperienced members isn’t going to solve the underlying problem. Creating more seats in smaller districts means elections are cheaper, and thus, the party is less necessary. It also means more parties having a seat and thus less chance for a single party to control the House and thus the House is less likely to be governed by a single person and instead function more like a democratic body..
* Age limits
* RCV/STAR
* Weeding out corruption by doubling down on FEC, SEC, FTC (to prevent high profile corporate consolidation), and IRS funding and overturning Citizens United
* Uncapping the House by pegging a district to 1/3 the population of the smallest state
* Voting in all House districts at-large, so gerrymandering is not even a possibility and there is always proportional representation. We did this up until a hundred years ago, but like capping the House, this was banned by the House simply bwcause of rising minority populations that would’ve seen fair rep if this continues.
* fucking Admit DC, PR and the other territories
* edit: and as blackbart1 said, PUBLICLY FINANCED ELECTIONS. Every citizen gets a set amount to donate throughout campaign seasons. They can burn it all at once or gradually repay people. **If money is speech in elections, then it doesn’t make sense that some people get more speech than others.**
* edit 2: As saltotart said, ban lobbies. And also PACs.
Boom, I just solved all the issues with the House. Outside age limits, this all just requires majority votes and the will to end the filibuster in the Senate.
Term limits are not the answer. They invite corruption. You have good, passionate leaders cycled out and the infinite revolving door of corrupt actors with private sector positions lined up otherwise.
It might; but Congress needs to be broken.
Sometimes you have to break something to fix it.
Does anybody here feel like that would be a bad thing? If there is one thing that I think we can all agree on, it’s that congress is a mess and probably could use a little breaking.
Congress is already broken.
???? It’s already broke. It’s named Congress not Progress ahahaha ok I’ll see myself out.
Fly her apart then!
Honestly, I see these as anti-democratic. The problem is money in politics and campaign financing. Term limits would just make what we already have worse: a never ending election cycle; candidates who are constantly campaigning more for attention than for policy; and speed up the revolving door from Comgress to lobbyist jobs or positions on boards of directors at corporations.
Then break it
Can’t break it any worse. Congressional and judicial term limits are needed.
Good. Break that shit down to a modern version.
The answer is to dramatically expand congress. If the House had kept up with the population, or was similar to the number of constituents per representative in most countries, there would be well over a thousand members. More members equals less incumbent advantage, more diversity and cheaper elections.
Trump protagonist here. We agree.
“…Might Break Congress…”
Too late.
Term limits are necessary, but I believe upper age limits are just as vital. We cannot be a brave or agile country when run almost exclusively by geriatrics. If we want real change and growth, we need upper age limits to bring the average age of our leaders down to the average age of those who created the declaration of independence and constitution.
I’d rather have a firm age limit than term limits. You still need some older folks around who have been there forever with the institution knowledge. So you can still have a 40 year career, if you start at a young age like AOC, but you’re done by 70.
Maybe Congress needs to be broken
Bold to assume that Congress is not already broken
I don’t want term limits, I just want age limits.
Term limits are just the start. No more special gold plated health insurance, they get Medicare, just like regular American’s get…..let’s see how they handle that…
An educated, informed and experienced congress is required to manage and represent our large country in this complex world. Ever work for an incredably stupid manager?
Term limits are a conservative/ fascist talking point to maintain power with ever changing line of morons that can be completely controlled by the wealthy.
Nope, the problems are the unaccountable, unlimited money and gerrymandered districts that lead to unqualified dysfunctional leadership.
Uncap the House.
Term limits might have some benefits, but most often they are a red herring. So many comments about corruption. Love to see the dislike of it, but sometimes term limits are something lobbyists use to take the focus off of campaign finance reform, a/k/a legalized bribery. Golly, wonder if that is where the corruption is? The totally obvious problem that is corruption incarnate that used to be illegal? Anybody?!! Naw, best to do nothing about that to the point no senator’s staff ever hears of such things from voters. And yes, I check sometimes with them. American voters are effectively pro-corruption. Because that works so well in the Russia.