What is your favorite term limit scheme?

Can we please be assured that a tarring and feathering awaits him outside the door?

1 Like

Another solution, please excuse my math geekeryā€¦

A declining threshold for recall petitions.

Upon your first election to office, it requires a significant minority, defined as the complement of the Golden Mean (about 38%) to petition to get a special election to kick your ass out.

For each year you remain in office, the threshold for recall election declines by [7th root of 38] percent, so that after 7 years, a single, dissatisfied constituent can trigger a recall vote.

3 Likes

2 years terms for all offices with people elected at random. The end of career politics!

Congress defunded the Office of Technology Assessment, so behind the scenes excellence may not be a priority.

Iā€™ve seen pieces that argue that it takes three or four years of on the job training to really develop the skill needed to write a bill, and push it through in essentially unaltered form.

Iā€™ve also read pieces that claim that the drafting is done by lobbyists, instead of by elected officials.

I donā€™t think that term limits are the answer-- free and fair elections are.

4 Likes

I think Iā€™m totally down with this, but please elaborate on what you mean by ā€œpeople elected at random.ā€

Might be a variant on lottocracy ( @MarjaE , above), but I want to be sure.

1 Like

Aye, thereā€™s the rub!

2 Likes

The House is already a second senate, and is not supposed to be. Repeal the 1913 law that set a limit on the number of house members and return us to 1 member/ 60,000 population. Think on it a second.

3 Likes

Interesting!

Balkanize the House of Representatives so thoroughly as to beggar the notion of partisanship? This is a pleasing thought!

Edit: This would have the House of Reps be about 5300ā€¦ I would love to see the Majority Whip be reduced to ā€œPisser and Whinerā€

4 Likes

Mark Thomas on politicians being sponsored (about 2 minutes 15 seconds in)

4 Likes

I had to look up the word, but it does sound like what I am getting at.

Another option is re-tooling the offices for delegation instead of representation. Delegates can get elected with specific promises but then easily fired if they donā€™t deliver. Representation has been kind of a joke, because once theyā€™re in, theyā€™re in, unless they do something egregiously illegal.

3 Likes

Technically, this is known as ā€œSortitionā€, and was how the Athenian democracy actually worked.

However, two such sortitions have failed in recent days: one in St Louis and one in Staten Islandā€¦

3 Likes

Well, yes. As with all political philosophies, attention must be paid to the real world.

1 Like

This alone was worth the price of admission!!!

Double-plus good, because Iā€™m not quite done with my :heart: cool down!

Ya, I would expect that ALEC cookie-cutter legislation would be even more common with a very green legislative corp.

4 Likes

My :heart:s are refreshed!!!

Let the :heart:ing resume!

5 Likes

Isnā€™t it?!?!

1 Like

Before 1906 the German Empire had no compensation for members of parliament at all. Of course then it was a filter to keep the middle class with their jobs and cheap suits away.

Especially if you combined that with aggressive term limits, I would worry that it ends up as an internship for Ivy League graduates trying to get into a real career - like lobbying.

6 Likes

Isnā€™t that the hell of it?

1 Like

Since

and there will always be one-- even if after seven years, the vast majority considers her to be a most capable legislator.

Two congresscritters enter, one congresscritter leaves.

3 Likes