Like a lot of well-meant "reforms", term limits is one of the most destructive ideas ever put forth to solve what is actually a non-existent problem. Some reasons:
1. Term limits are indiscriminate. They toss out the good with the bad. This inevitably leads to bad government.
2. They are anti-democratic. We live in a democracy. People should be able to vote for whomever they wish without some artificial prohibition subverting the public's will.
3. Term limits are in fact unnecessary. The current average length of service in the House is a fraction under 10 years. Normal turnover -- from death, retirement, running for other office, resignation, etc. -- has already for many years effectively acted as term limits in every essential. Limits on congressional chairmanships has also served to reduce the possibility of abuse of power or position, as well as the lure of staying on in office in perpetuity.
4. The notion of term-limit advocates that this would somehow lead to a Congress of honest citizens doing their bit of good for country for a few years before happily returning to the farm or blacksmith's is quaint in a 1780s sense but not only ridiculous on its face but disproved in its limited application so far. In fact, it would lead to an increase in Congress of ideologues and self-promoters, narrow and insular people with little exposure to the wider world, who know nothing of making government work and are interested only in either advancing their own limited agendas or their own post-congressional careers, or both. It would lead to an explosion of one-issue candidates or people buying their way into office in an effort to profit from "public service". It guarantees the triumph of ignorance and opportunism. If you get elected to the House and know from the outset you have at most six (even 12) years to stay there, many if not most members would spend most of their time promoting their own interests with an eye to using House service as a stepping-stone to self-advancement or -enrichment. People who worry about the present congressional dysfunction would regard these as the sane old days once a Congress of random, ungoverned zealots, ignoramuses and profiteers takes over.
5. Most of the people who support term limits for office holders also hold a rose-colored and perfectly idiotic view about the benevolence of big business and private industry. This is the old and thoroughly counter-factual belief embodied by Saint Reagan's declaration that "Government isn't the solution; government is the problem." Sorry, but the world isn't that black and white, and certainly not that simplistic. Government is no more inherently "the problem" than it is "the solution". The fact is that government is a necessary, indeed indispensable, adjunct of any civil, and civilized, society. This doesn't mean it is always right, that it always works well, that it cannot do stupid or even dangerous things. But we the people have it in our power to remedy such situations...or keep them going, if that's our decision. The key is to fix government when it needs fixing, manage it well, make it work -- not moronically, and inaccurately, demagogically label it "the problem". Term limits are by their nature inimical to making government work. You cannot have a bunch of ignorant amateurs -- even if well-meaning, which many if not most would not be -- with no knowledge of the country or the world or how government functions running that government. Would these same people who cartoonishly damn all government be content if major corporations fired all their employees every six years and brought in brand new people with no knowledge or experience but with a lot of goofy ideas? Would you want your house built by such people, your car manufactured by that type of employee, hospitals staffed by new and inexperienced people every few years? Would you want to lose your job every six years simply because you had held it for some arbitrary amount of time? Yet these people, out of zealotry and unthinking ignorance, are blind to the fact that government, like any institution, requires learning, continuity, knowledge, skilled management, a retention of institutional memory and understanding, to keep things running, to make sure newcomers are educated in the basics of government, of what it can and cannot do, of how to operate it and make it function, how to make policy decisions and learning about and working with others of different backgrounds and beliefs. Government in itself is not an enemy or a problem. If it becomes such, it's because of the people running it. Mitt Romney said "Corporations are people", but regardless of the truth of that statement government surely is people -- because unlike corporations, it's the people who vote it in, who run for it, who have the ability to shape it. None of these things applies to private enterprise. Nobody outside a company elects corporate leaders, and they're certainly not answerable to the public. Corporations can and routinely do lie and cheat and steal and cover up and the public at large has no recourse. This is entirely unlike government, where the public does have its voice heard. We have it in our power to throw out bad legislators or vote for a change in policies. And even without a limit on the number of terms, each term of office is by definition limited: a term in office is for a fixed period of two or four or six years, something that certainly doesn't exist in the corporate world. Imperfect? Surely. But why would anyone so cavalierly advocate crippling something that touches every single person in America -- indeed, in our case, the world -- by turning it over to untutored, incompetent or selfish temps? Again, I ask -- is that how you'd run a business? Would you be satisfied with the output of a company run under such rules? Then why would anyone blithely accept such a half-witted approach to the most crucial thing of all?
And by the way, as President, Reagan several times called for the repeal of the 22nd Amendment to the Constitution that limits presidents to two terms. (And he never supported congressional term limits.) I believe he was right, but later term-limits advocates thoughtfully ignored their otherwise-faultless idol's apostasy on this issue.
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What's interesting about the term-limits movement in this country is how hypocritical most of its supposed champions have been. Back in 1994, when term-limits mania was at its height, in your state of Washington, Eric, George Nethercutt ran against Speaker Tom Foley in CD5 as a single-issue candidate, criticizing Foley for having served 30 years in office -- something Foley could not have done without the acquiescence of the people of the district, a minor fact that is usually conveniently forgotten. Nethercutt swore up and down the district that under no circumstances would he serve more than three terms -- six years. He won, and repeated this promise in 1996 and 1998. But, like magic, when 2000 rolled around, suddenly term-limits poster boy Nethercutt announced that three terms weren't enough, and ran for a fourth. And despite his being exposed as a liar, hypocrite and fraud, the people of the 5th reelected him -- as they did and should have had the right to do. And reelect him in 2002. Not until 2004, when term-limits George decided to take his crusade to the Senate, was he finally defeated and, four years late, sent into the retirement he had so earnestly advocated a decade before.
Yet Nethercutt was right about one thing, as were all the other term-limits advocates who reneged on their pledges: that "six years is not enough". He and they had grown up and realized that running the government of the United States of America is not something that can be done with a perpetual turnover of its officeholders every two years. It requires experienced people who have learned how to govern and have the knowledge and grasp of public affairs to do so.
Very few of the people who've campaigned on term limits have actually limited themselves. When the time comes most have found some excuse not to fulfill their campaign promise. (Tom Coburn of Oklahoma was one of those very few Representatives who lived up to his promise when he retired from the House after three terms in 2000.) The nature of term-limit supporters was often laughable. Strom Thurmond, who served over 47 years in the Senate and finally retired at age 100, claimed to support term limits even as he kept running for reelection. Newt Gingrich pulled the wool over a lot of people's eyes in his so-called "Contract With America" in '94. He inserted a clause that many people thought promised that the Republicans would enact term limits. What it actually said, of course, was that they would only bring term limits to a vote -- not that they'd actually pass them. The GOP did bring it up for a vote -- and rejected it. Gingrich himself, always untrustworthy, refused to categorically say whether he was for or against term limits (though he privately worked against them) but did state he thought they should be 12 years in the House, that they not be retroactive, and that another 12 in the Senate would be permissible. Had Gingrich's limits been ratified and inserted into the Constitution by, say, 1998, Newt would have been free to run until 2012 or perhaps 2014, then gone on to two terms in the Senate, which would have meant this term-limits advocate would have ended up serving nearly half a century on the Hill.
There really are very few members of Congress who serve 30 or 40, let alone 50 or 60, years anymore. One way or another, most people move on after a time, and to serve that long you really have to get elected very young. This and the unchallengeable turnover statistics have made the concept of term limits a (bad) solution to a non-existent problem. Nevertheless, if the people of Dingell's district in Michigan wish to elect him for almost sixty years, why should they be denied this opportunity? The people of South Carolina kept sending the racist, non-legislating Thurmond to office until he'd lived for a century. Personally I think their choice was a mistake, but they shouldn't have been denied the right to vote for whom they wanted, particularly for completely arbitrary and dangerous reasons. If the good citizens of Nebraska want to send an inept imbecile like Carl Curtis to Congress for forty years (16 House, 24 Senate), that should be their right.
The key to insuring responsible rather than meat-ax turnover, that people have a chance to exercise the franchise in a meaningful way, and most importantly, that government is run by people with knowledge, training and understanding of how it works, is not to subvert democracy through an ill-considered "reform". (God save us from reformers!) What's crucial are essentially two things:
First, eliminate gerrymandering and instead have all congressional districts drawn by impartial, independent bodies, to maximize competitiveness. Obviously there will always be some districts that are effectively one-party or heavily favor one party, but this is inevitable. The key is to maximize the number of genuinely competitive districts to make turnover more possible. This would also help insure that better candidates, more professional and committed people truly dedicated to their constituents and good government, run and get elected to Congress.
Second, take the free flow of money out of politics. Do away with this nonsensical concept that "money equals free speech" and level the financial playing field. There are several ways in which this matter can be dealt with, alone or in combination. Public financing so that both major candidates have the same amount of money; limits on donations and spending; free access to the airwaves for a certain amount of time -- all are examples, and there are others. Most other democracies have some such restrictions on money in politics and most seem to have fair elections.
Whatever the specifics, what is needed is to make districts, access to money and elections themselves fairer, more competitive and even-handed. No system works perfectly and there will always be some issues to be resolved. But the one sure way not to "reform" the system is by opening the floodgates to dangerous, greedy and stupid people to hold high office and wreak havoc on this country -- not just for their six years, but for the interminable number of six-year boobs who will continually be elected to govern this flawed but sacred nation.
Re Advise & Consent.... In both the book and movie it's said that Seab Cooley had served over 40 years in the Senate. Yet when the book was written and the film made, no one had in fact ever served four decades in the Senate. The interesting thing is that, at some point in the six-year Senate term that began the year the film was made (1962), i.e., January 3, 1963 - January 3, 1969, all seven men who would eventually serve 40 or more years in the Senate served simultaneously, at least for a time. In order of length of service:
Robert C. Byrd (D-WV), 1959-2010
Daniel K. Inouye (D-HI), 1963-2012
Strom Thrumond (D to 1964, R from 1964-SC) 1954-1956, 1956-2003
Edward M. Kennedy (D-MA), 1963-2009
Carl T. Hayden (D-AZ), 1927-1969
John C. Stennis (D-MS), 1947-1989
Ted Stevens (R-AK), 1968-2009
The first six served a full six years together. Stevens just made it into the term by a couple of weeks, following his appointment in mid-December 1968. I don't want to credit Drury with yet more debatable "prescience", but he did project a senator serving longer than any other had, and one from South Carolina to boot. But in the 50s picking a southerner was the most logical choice for a 40-year-man, even though it was Arizona's Hayden who first crossed the 40-year barrier, in 1967. (And, counting his 15 years as Arizona's first Representative from 1912-1927, nearly 57 years on Capitol Hill, a record broken only by Robert Byrd and John Dingell...which is where we came in.)
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Eric-62-2
10 years ago
On term limits, I'll agree that six years is too short. What I would prefer is no more than 18 years in the Senate, three terms and 20 years tops in the House. I simply believe that the longer one serves, regardless of which party it is, that you will in the end grow entirely distant from your roots and the list of professional politicians who make Washington, D.C. their homes and maintain only a non-existent place in their home state they never live in as their "legal" residence are ultimately an out-of-touch group of people that the Framers didn't have in mind for citizen participation (especially since they were in an age when a Congressional session was mandated for only part of the year to accommodate travel).
You cannot have a bunch of ignorant amateurs -- even if well-meaning, which many if not most would not be -- with no knowledge of the country or the world or how government functions running that government.
The problem, Hob, is that I've seen far too many ignorant amateurs with no knowledge of the country who keep getting re-elected! Nancy Pelosi, who was entrusted with being two heartbeats away from the Presidency (a very chilling thought) is not enough of a Parliamentarian about the body she once headed to know that you do not go up to a speaker on the floor and wag your finger at him and interrupt him when he's legitimately making his speech. That's the mark of a prima donna who doesn't think the rules apply to her. And we have also seen an Administration that isn't very bright when it comes to its legal advisors on the separation of powers when they make illegal recess appointments that don't even pass the smell test with any of the liberals on the Supreme Court. If anything, the problem I've seen is that we have far too many people in Washington who aren't getting any training whatsoever in the Constitutional process of how a Republic form of government is supposed to work and who think that constitutional barriers to their concept of "reform" are a nuisance to be cast aside.
The one thing I will say about term limits is that I do agree it has to come about in the proscribed manner, and not by exploiting some loophole to mandate it improperly which is how I've seen far too many things imposed on our society by fiat rather than by democratic vote or proper Constitutional process. When that is accomplished it will be because the people's will spoke on the matter, just as it did on the 22nd Amendment.
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hobnob53
10 years ago
Catching up a month late....
I simply believe that the longer one serves, regardless of which party it is, that you will in the end grow entirely distant from your roots and the list of professional politicians who make Washington, D.C. their homes and maintain only a non-existent place in their home state they never live in as their "legal" residence are ultimately an out-of-touch group of people that the Framers didn't have in mind for citizen participation
I agree this is a problem, but that doesn't mean that term limits is the answer. The key, as I said in my very long post before, is to level the playing field so that challengers have equal access to money and media and as fair a chance to make their case and win as an incumbent. The scenario you speak of is actually playing out this year in the Kansas Senate election. The Republican incumbent Pat Roberts has not had a home in the state for many years and votes from a supporter's house in which he claims residence. This has been the chief criticism leveled at him both in the primary (which he won against divided and unqualified opposition with only 48% of the vote) and now in the general election, where as of this date he's trailing his Independent opponent. Many senators and congressmen have been subject to attacks on the same issue over the years and many have been voted out of office in consequence. So the system can work, even in its current very imperfect way, without the "reform" of term limits.
The actions you ascribe to Nancy Pelosi don't make her "unqualified", just obnoxious. (You may be pleased or interested to know that I cannot stand her and think her elevation to the Democratic leadership was a huge mistake.) Unqualified applies to genuinely stupid, inexperienced and incompetent people such as perhaps a third of the current GOP caucus in the House. Steve Stockman? Blake Farenthold? Paul Broun? Dozens more from Indiana, Idaho, Pennsylvania, Georgia, Colorado, Kansas, South Carolina and on and on. Across the country most of the Tea Party candidates who got in in 2010, plus some kindred spirits of different origins, are inept and staggeringly ignorant of public events or the nature of the world. They know nothing of others' experiences and most prefer to remain cocooned among their own kind. Several members have admitted this: they're not interested in talking to or getting to know people from other backgrounds. Too many of the current House base is dangerously stupid and bigoted. This is not about ideology: there are many competent, thoughtful, able conservatives in office too. Unfortunately these have been cowed by the radical extremists who dominate the party and have to tread carefully for fear of primary challenges. Just ask Eric Cantor.
This is the one great difference between you and me, Eric. I dislike and want no part of a number of Democrats and liberals who for whatever reason I believe are unqualified or personally repugnant to me, even if I agree with much of what they say, and have criticized them accordingly. You have never to my knowledge seriously criticized or questioned any Republican's qualifications, abilities or beliefs. You sincerely seem to believe that any conservative Republican is by definition the better (if very occasionally perhaps not the "best") choice, even (per our old Louisiana 1991 gubernatorial discussion) a KKK member over a financially corrupt Democrat. You have never uttered one word of unalloyed criticism of any Republican for their lack of qualifications, their ignorance, or their inappropriate actions or statements. You attack Pelosi for wagging a finger at someone but have always approved of or at least excused Joe Wilson's yelling "You lie!" at the President of the United States during the State of the Union address. If a Democrat had done that to Bush or Reagan you would have risen up in indignity demanding their censure. As would I -- another difference between us. But no
Democrat ever did such a thing.
I hold public office, perhaps naively, as a public trust. I don't want crooks, ideologues, ignoramuses, demagogues, profiteers or people with personal or political agendas in office. Of course, you will always get some of these. The key to one's honesty of purpose is in how one reacts to such transgressors
regardless of party. It's easy to attack a Maxine Walters; I don't see you attacking an Alan West. You're a very bright, well-read person. How can you in conscience defend some of the people of staggering ignorance and demagoguery in your party? Are you proud of them? Are the ranks of conservatism so impoverished that such people are the best you can do? And I won't even go into the racism exhibited by some members of Congress and many other Republicans across the nation, such as the GOP town official in New Hampshire who recently called Obama a "n----r".
Until and unless you're willing to fully, forthrightly and unreservedly renounce some of the worst exemplars of your own party, your attacks on Democrats ring hollow. And "unreservedly" does not mean dragging in some extraneous Democrat for criticism to divert or soften the blow. It means standing up and saying "This Republican is a disgrace" without qualifications or irrelevant comparisons. I'm truly sorry, and disappointed, you're not capable of that. It betrays your intellect and the sense of right I would have thought you of all people would have been imbued with.
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Eric-62-2
10 years ago
Hob, I really have no desire to argue. I'd have to go into a lengthy discourse on why I reject 100% your characterization of movements and people I support as "racist and bigoted" and that's something I'd just rather not do (not because I can't, but because it wouldn't be productive for either of us to then have a lengthy volley on that that might fray our nerves too much). At some point I'd then be bringing up matters that outrage me completely like the IRS and Eric Holder and Harry Reid etc. and you would respond etc. and to me that's not a positive volley like I felt our Marshall exchange a couple years ago was. From this point on I'm going to make an effort to only talk political differences when they concern something historical in nature and not current events. I think that way we'll both benefit ultimately.
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hobnob53
10 years ago
Eric, I don't wish to argue with you either, because I regard you as a decent, kind and generous person and I like and respect you.
Unfortunately your reply has only proven my great disappointment: that you cannot, do not and will not acknowledge or even concede the possibility that some of the people with whom you might agree ideologically are unfit, bigoted, stupid, crooked, whatever. You "reject 100% [my] characterization of movements and people [you] support". This is an absolutist -- and absurdist -- statement. You are saying you can personally vouch for each and every Tea Partier, TP or just plain conservative politician and other ideological figures and can state categorically that not a single one is a racist, an anti-Semite, dishonest, demagogic or just plain ignorant, and that none engages in uncivil or disgraceful public behavior. Not one. Not one out of hundreds of thousands or perhaps millions. You know this 100%. And in the face of anything to the contrary, you simply change the subject -- or the target.
I gave you a perfect opportunity to do no more than rebuke a Congressman who displayed shocking behavior in public toward the President before assembled dignitaries from around the world and before a nationwide audience during the State of the Union. Yet you cannot find it in yourself to do so. As I said, had a liberal Democrat done that to Reagan you would have been demanding his censure if not expulsion from the House. But a Republican doing it to Obama? Silence. (Except from his fellow conservatives, who in the days after his un-censured outburst sent him over $2,000,000 in donations from all sorts of un-racist, un-bigoted, un-stupid people in the ranks of the un-Democrats.)
But of course you raise Eric Holder, Harry Reid and various other right-wing bugaboos. Proving my point once more.
You have no qualms about criticizing those you don't agree with, even over minor or irrelevant matters. But given your professions of faith I would also expect you to be truthful, and to disassociate yourself from racist, wicked or dishonest people who bear false witness, hate, or lie, no matter what their ideology. As I said, this is disappointing, both in your refusal to acknowledge truth and to apply the same principles equally to all regardless of their ideology.
But my regard for you remains.
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Eric-62-2
10 years ago
Hob, I'm sorry but I have my reasons for rejecting your characterization in which you are painting a very broad brush on a movement I happen to support that goes beyond whether *any* person in the movement has expressed outrageous remarks. If I chose to offer my reasons in defense, I'd like to think it would have been part of a dialogue of understanding but because I sense too much that neither of us would remain on our best behavior if we had that discussion, it's best for us to just not have it.
To just carry that point a little further, I could take the fact that you use the term "bugaboo" in regard to Reid and Holder, to pose some questions to you in the way you've posed them to me but I don't want to have that kind of discussion with you. It would disrespect the kindness you've shown to me in other places and in other discussions and represent trying to pick a fight for the sake of it, and while I'm the first to admit I've succumbed to that temptation many times over the years in Internet forums with other people (I'm sure you've seen some of my comments elsewhere in imdb when I'm letting loose with other people) I shouldn't do something like that with you. If we talk about something like politics from the 80s and before, its easier for me to feel like an academic having a more detached discussion and if we have any discussions about those matters, I think we'll both show the better angels of our nature in the process.
That's really all I have to say about this. The best to you.
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