All the reforms that Newt Gingrich advocated probably need be closely reexamined in the light of how politics have gone bad in the intervening decades and the possibility that this was deliberate sabotage.
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I like the overall ideas, egads, especially the limits on time spent campaigning. For all of our sakes.
But I also think representatives should get longer term limits than senators because, even with campaign limits, they have to spend more of their time campaigning for the same amount of time in office.
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In my thought exercise I left the terms the same as they are now. I think congresspersons could get a lot done in three years vs two, meaning 8% of their term would be spent in campaigning for reelection. And in a Single Transferable Vote system one wouldn’t have to spend as much time actively campaigning
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Likewise! But the possibility of Constitutional constraints is on my mind, since All Those Folks are pointing out how even if what’s his face is found guilty of a law where ineligibility to hold public office is a penalty, there’s an argument to be made that since the Constitution explicitly lays out eligibility criteria for the Presidency, it trumps (see what I did there?) statutory law. I feel like eligibility for Congress might be similarly restricted, but it’s less clear thanks to my complete lack of knowledge of Con Law.
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One thing that worries me about term limits is that “nothing to lose” cuts both ways. Once someone knows for sure that they don’t have to worry about what voters think because they won’t be back either way, they may act their conscience…or they may unleash their inner demons.
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I’m not quite clear, but are you saying, ideally we’d also extend representative terms to 3 years (as opposed to the current 2)?
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Well, if we are looking to minimize percentage of time spent campaigning, then bump the time spent as a congressperson to three years. I’m not advocating for that though. I think two year terms are sufficient
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Ah. I always find myself thinking 2 years is insanely short (given our current system of campaigning and stuff).
I like the idea of stretching it to 3 years, and it would still match up with the senate terms.
Thanks for clarifying.
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The Supreme Court has considered the issue.
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By suggesting age limits I’m more concerned with solving a different issue. There’s an obvious history of people serving longer than they should–whether their health was hidden by staff or people deliberately chose to reelect them to keep seniority and power benefiting their state. For me, I don’t see duration as a huge issue. The ACA was passed 12 years ago and I think it’d be nice to have firsthand knowledge when there’s an opportunity to improve it. Like you said, a lot of the heavy lifting is done by staff. I think it’s embarrassing as a country it’s often young, unpaid work. I also think this filters for people who come from affluence and a narrow set of backgrounds. I’m so happy to see this changing.
I do think any discussion of term limits needs to have numbers. I agree with @wazroth that 12 years may be too short and 24 years is probably too long. Ban on trading should be obvious along with the other things mentioned. Honestly, I just think there’s so many other things that seem to better address the issues we all are pointing out.
That’s an argument for longer terms for representatives. Four years instead of the current two sounds reasonable to me. If you absolutely want, you could stagger them so that half of the House would be up for election every two years.
Part if this is a result of the very entrenchment allowed by a lack of term limits. @anon61221983 mentioned that there are plenty of other eays to to learn about the structure of legislation, so is the sea-legs period really about knowledge and skill or networking, building alliances, and a backlog of mutual backscratching and blackmail. This all takes more time, more energy and more money the more entrenched the existing network is. If you didn’t have established networks of 40 or 50 year veterans to try to break into the ramping on process would probably be a lot quicker.
There’s a ready made group of these people. They have large experience, are available for no cost to members of congress, no limits or accountability. I believe most of them have offices on K Street.
Things that give that group move power as a side effect will end poorly.
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These would all be a huge step forward alone. Perhaps enough to eliminate the need for the other. It’s insane that we still use a voting system where the winner can have less than 50%.
This one is more complicated, and has some serious side effects to consider.
First, how local and what qualifies? Is town council good enough? Or, does this mean state government first?
Next, lots of those positions, at both the local local level and at the state level are part time jobs with part time pay. (Which is an issue too.) So, to do one of them you need to already have a job that both pays enough and allows enough extra free time to take on the second job in local government. I’ve seen people do the math on running for state government representative vs federal government representative for the same state. The state job would bankrupt them and so wasn’t an option.
This is the same problem with the underpaid or unpaid federal government internships as a pipeline to getting the job. They both filter out anyone who doesn’t already have enough money to subsidize being unpaid or severely underpaid for years.
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Yep.
Maybe instead of 4 years in local government the requirement could be 2 years as a waiter, bartender, of other front-facing service position. To better know the public they aim to serve, you know? 
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No. Not lobbyists. 
I’m talking the kind of knowledge to make one’s job easier. Every type of institution has some way to ensure that things run smoothly by having groups of people who understand the ins and outs of that organization. You need people with institutional knowledge to make long term institutions work. You can’t just have an entire body being run by everyone who is brand new. I don’t know why that is a bad thing, but it’s a thing.
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You mean I can’t be an expert on any area of policy, government or law with just an hour’s skimming of the internet?
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I understand that is the desired outcome. However, it cannot be ignored that lobbyist will try to fill the gap. I can wish them away, but it doesn’t make it so.
I agree. Everyone cannot be new all the time. That’s a core problem with just using Term Limits as the hammer to the solution. Make the limit to small, and all kinds of side effects pop up then. It becomes lobbyists or random staff or some other group that’s really running the show and know the ins and outs with the elected person along for the ride giving a little input. Make the limit to long and it’s not really a limit anymore and doesn’t create the desired change.
Solving the problems typically associated with Term Limits as the solution are all good problems to solve. It’s just not clear that Term Limits will solve them or create unintended consequences instead that make those problems worse. Consequences that then require additional solutions, which if those were just done first could remove the need for term limits.
The argument goes something like:
Politicians are to in the pocket of lobbyists. Term Limit would reduce that dependency by limiting how long each is in office and diminishing the hold lobbyists can have on them.
Side effect that politicians are always new, so they need to depend on others for experience more.
Side effect, lobbyists swoop in to fill that void providing the experience. Making the problem worse.
Solution, we change the rules to limit the influence of lobbyists.
Had we just done the last step first, we probably wouldn’t have needed the first.
Replace lobbyist with conflict of interest issues instead. Use term limit to restrict how long a politician can favor their own interests instead of the constituents. We end up the same place, with a short term, it’s YOLO on the conflicts since they’ll be gone anyway. With a long term, no change. Instead we need to change how the conflicts are dealt with.
Having a long limit is probably good for other reasons. But it’s not going solve what most people think it will. Something like 24 years, 4 terms for a Senator and 12 for a representative. A nice sized career. Long enough to become good, impact change, apply that experience. But short enough that the next generation isn’t blocked out completely. We don’t need 40+ year politicians.
We need to fix the issues that prevent voting from being ineffectual. Which would solve the poor politicians before they’re anywhere near the limit too.
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Twitter has taught me it doesn’t even take an hour.
You can be an expert on anything and everything in seconds.
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Of it’s fine… isn’t that what wikipedia is for… you can rely on that for information, yeah?
Then why reply to me with a post that utterly dismissed my point?
Which I did not do. But hey… why read what I wrote?
Not if you fucking generally ban lobbyists (especially corporate lobbyists… which is part of what I said above…But hey, better to write a dismissive post.
Which, again, was not my argument.
But I’m done with this, since you seem uninterested in discussing this topic with me, but seem intent on talking down to me.
Good day.
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