I have occasionally joked that only people over 60 should be allowed to stand for election, but only people under 60 should be allowed to vote.
This way, you tend to sort out the ‘term length’ issue simply through natural selection, you get people who had to actually experience life, they are less prone to the ‘directorships when you retire’ corruption temptation and it’s harder for them to legislate for their cohort because that cohort won’t be voting.
Yes, it’s obviously ridiculously stupid - but honestly, could it be worse than any other option?
“Natural selection”* would also reduce the number of progressives, resulting in a more conservative Democratic Party.
* It’s not natural, it’s racism, homophobia, transphobia and classism, which would become further entrenched by your suggestion. I know that’s not your intention though.
I think it is exactly the same argument.
The person who sells their vote for a movie ticket is not going to decide that a bicycle is just too much of a gift.
I’m not normally one to rake the press over the coals, but WOW are they all missing the point on this. They’re all focusing on Oliver’s silly offer that Thomas would never take, and ignoring Oliver’s point: There is no way this should be legal, but as far as anyone can tell, it totally IS.
I totally agree with your points, but why is the Executive Branch the only one with term limits? Do your arguments evaporate when applied to the presidency? My point is what’s good for the goose is sauce for the gander, so if one branch has term limits then all branches should.
Sadly, not enough of those people are in the Senate. Too many still have this romantic view of the filibuster as it was portrayed by Jimmy Stewart in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, and they think it’s the last thing that can prevent an overzealous majority from trampling on the rights of the little guy. But it’s never been that, really, and it’s certainly not that today with all the changes that have been made to it. Alexander Hamilton wrote the following in Federalist Paper #22. Tell me it doesn’t exactly describe the state of Congress today:
To give a minority a negative upon the majority (which is always the case where more than a majority is requisite to a decision), is, in its tendency, to subject the sense of the greater number to that of the lesser.… The necessity of unanimity in public bodies, or of something approaching towards it, has been founded upon a supposition that it would contribute to security. But its real operation is to embarrass the administration, to destroy the energy of the government, and to substitute the pleasure, caprice, or artifices of an insignificant, turbulent, or corrupt junto, to the regular deliberations and decisions of a respectable majority. In those emergencies of a nation, in which the goodness or badness, the weakness or strength of its government, is of the greatest importance, there is commonly a necessity for action. The public business must, in some way or other, go forward. If a pertinacious minority can control the opinion of a majority, respecting the best mode of conducting it, the majority, in order that something may be done, must conform to the views of the minority; and thus the sense of the smaller number will overrule that of the greater, and give a tone to the national proceedings. Hence, tedious delays; continual negotiation and intrigue; contemptible compromises of the public good. And yet, in such a system, it is even happy when such compromises can take place: for upon some occasions things will not admit of accommodation; and then the measures of government must be injuriously suspended, or fatally defeated. It is often, by the impracticability of obtaining the concurrence of the necessary number of votes, kept in a state of inaction. Its situation must always savor of weakness, sometimes border upon anarchy.
The Executive Branch is the only one that is dominated by a single individual and we like to keep authority more distributed. Even so, many individuals who work within the Executive Branch serve decades at a stretch.
There is a full episode on youtube if you search for it - but it’s got those distracting things they do to it so the bots don’t flag it.
Usually they do officailly post their main story on youtube the day after. I hope they are just falling down on the job and not doing away with that. His show is well researched and pretty funny.
Even if abolishing the filibuster is a non-starter, how about going back to something closer to its original usage. If you want to filibuster a bill, you need to stand on the floor of the chamber and talk. As soon as you stop (not just to take a breath, but when you leave the floor, pause for a significant time, or fall asleep / pass out), your filibuster is done. [Maybe also include a rule that no member of Congress can filibuster a bill more than once or limit the second and later speeches on the same bill to a much shorter time limit.]
Sure, if 41 Senators want to filibuster a bill they can waste a lot of time talking, but eventually their endurance (or their bladder control) is going to run out and they’ll have to leave the floor. And their opponents can point out exactly how much time they spent delaying the bill in later speeches or campaign ads.
“HBO has decided they’re going to wait until Thursday to post them to YouTube from now on,” he wrote. “I hope they change their mind, but until then, you can see our piece about the Supreme Court on HBO, on MAX, and on YouTube in a few days.”
I know that a number of Senators have voiced support for that approach, and hopefully they get there, but the challenge, as always, is that at a minimum they’ll need to convince the 51st most-liberal Senator to support it. And if that’s someone like Kyrsten Sinema who has repeatedly opposed any changes to the filibuster then it can be very difficult.
Talk about cuttting out the middleman. I mean, might as well. Thomas would be a fool not to take it. It’s not as if he GAF anyway about decorum or precedent.
Even worse, combine short terms with low pay, and there is even less incentive to not sell out. It’s not like they have to plan for a long public service where that would hurt them.
The pipeline and a lack of experience and institutional knowledge are linked too. A lobbyist with lots of experience and institutional knowledge has significantly more potential to influence and an inexperienced congress person. If none of the members have any (or very little) experience writing laws, all the laws would be written by lobbyists with gobs of experience. Even worse than today.
There’s probably some sweet spot between 2 terms and forever. Something long enough to avoid the short duration pitfalls while also not so long that they never change. Something that is different for each office. It’s likely to be longer than most people think of when thinking of term limits.
