[Drain The Swamp] Trump's proposal on congressional term limits

It's a good idea. Maybe the only Trump policy I like.

 

Congressional term limits has lots of benefits (and drawbacks), but draining the swamp isn't really one of them. Yes, you reduce career politicians. But you also empower lobbyists - they are most useful to newer Congresspeople who don't have the experience and knowledge of long-serving ones. Someone who's been in Washington working on tax policy for 20 years knows their stuff. Someone's who's been there for 2 is going to rely much more on outside knowledge, and that's where lobbyists step in.

Better solution is to stop gerrymandering districts so they become more competitive. Then Congresspeople have to actually answer to their constitutents and will get voted out more often, instead of having safe seats where the only thing that matters is the letter by your name.

 

The only concern I have with term limits is that in some places finding someone well-qualified is a challenge. heck, many believe that we are challenged to find two well-qualified candidates for President, and that's choosing from the entirety of the United States. Imagine finding a large well of well-qualified candidates in small population areas.

The other concern... its basically a law we are placing on ourselves because we can't be trusted to choose and vote for the best candidates. We can't trust ourselves to apply term limits by voting for other candidates.

 

None of the above.

The idea has been around since the mid 1990s when the Republicans won the House in 1994. States tried to implement their own limits but the SCOTUS ruled this to be unconstitutional. Attempts at making it a constitutional amendment also failed.

I do not think term limits will be as beneficial for the US congress or the everyday person as many people think when they hear about it.
It's an open election for their seats. 50-60% of the people who can vote simply don't when it comes to selecting our reps and senators. We continue to elect the same people time and time again because we like them, not because they have no term limits. If they're doing a bad job, they are voted out. If everyone thinks they are doing a bad job, but do not vote, then they have no legs to stand on.

 

It's not Trump's idea. It was a republican platform policy in the 1990s, and it was revived as an idea in the 2000s by a democratic political scientist because it had some success at the state level in multiple states.

 

Will NEVER Happen. You don't want it to happen. The difference between city/state governments and the Federal Government is the international relationships. You cannot have novices dealing with International issues. You see the mess Trump is creating. Obama was in the Senate for 2 years before he ran for president and after that he surrounded himself with Experience foreign policy people.

 

It's none of those. Like virtually everything else Trump does, it's just a simpleton's solution to a complex problem, designed to appeal to people who need things dumbed down into catchphrases and the like because they can't grasp anything more.

 

On its surface, I'd say place term limits on the House and leave the Senate as is.

 

I'm unsure on this issue.

If you don't have reelection to worry about, you're not going to be as responsive to voters.

Lame ducks can be dangerous.

 

I think house terms need to be increased to 4 years. They spend 3/4ths of their time in office working on the next election.

 

problem is you get to select your voters... effectively an R or D lame duck forever

 

Agree, make house terms four years max of four terms senate max of three terms.

 

Term limits are never happening. The Term limits debate in the 90s boiled down to one very cynical goal. There was a large contingent of Democrats that kept winning in Congressional districts that voted Republican at the Presidential level (Texas, for example, had a majority Democratic Congressional delegation despite a majority of those districts voting Republican at the Presidential level). Term limits was a way to force those representatives out. Of course it didn't matter at the end of the day, Republicans won a majority in 1994 anyway and in 2010, redistricting created the opposite issue. Republicans are now in safe seats. Term limits is actually a bad thing when you're in the majority. You don't want tenured members being forced out repeatedly. It creates opportunities for the opposition to pick up seats if you nominate poor candidates to replace your former representatives.

If you want to change politics, fix campaign finance. Term limits doesn't change the fundamentals of being a Congressman today. You'll still raise funds 90% of the time, special interests will continue to influence the process, etc.. This is just a poorly thought out way to address the problems that exist today.

 

Term limits, campaign finance, and lobbyists. Fixing these issues would go a long way in having a government that makes decisions that they genuinely believe in over simply trying to get re-elected.

 

I do agree that House terms need to be increased. The House is too hyper sensitive to short term goals because they are up for election so quickly after they get seated.

 

Term limits create an amateur hour of legislation. I prefer seasoned legislators who know what they are doing.

A cautionary tale? All of the idiotic tea party neophytes who came in without a clue and were voted out because of it.

The way to term limit congress is to vote them out when necessary.

 

"No one in this world, so far as I know—and I have researched the records for years, and employed agents to help me—has ever lost money by underestimating the intelligence of the great masses of the plain people. Nor has anyone ever lost public office thereby." - H. L. Menken

 

Step one to congressional reform is fixing the gerrymandering problem.

 

Do you want 90 year old law makers who would rather die in office and have no good sense to retire at 75? If not term limit, which i think is fine, term limit of 20 years is plenty for just about any position. Fresh blood can help many times, how many of the current law makers actually truly understand how net neutrality can affect the future?