Can someone explain to me why in the world we don't have a Term Limit for every elected office in the land? This country was founded and run by part-time politicians for many decades and it should still be run that way. Government is like a pig at the trough. I know that elections are supposed to function like Term Limit boundaries, but they don't. There's too much money involved and too much inertia in the process. We have cheapened ourselves and our political processes. We need the dynamic of <b>automatic</b> change in our leadership to keep the country fresh. If it works for the presidency it should work for every dad-gum office. Rant over...
I disagree....if the people want Rudy Guliani to be their mayor again, why should they be prevented from that? We're a representative democracy...we should be able to choose whoever we want to represent us...even if that person is already in office.
I think term limits should only be in place for idiots who champion term limits, but when their limit comes up, tries to stay in office. How in the world can you trust someone that goes on and on about it, but doesn't do it themselves?
I think if you solve the money problems where incumbents have more money and thus can easily get themselves re-elected, you solve the term-limits problem. Right now, the problem is that people can stay in office forever AND as an officeholder, they have a huge advantage in elections. I don't think Presidential term limits are a good idea because the incumbent doesn't have that huge advantage. With all the media coverage of those elections, the opponent is not an "unknown" like a Congressional election so people can make informed decisions. Plus, without term limits, we'd be in the middle of Clinton year 10.
Every election is a term limit. Why do we need artificial ones? Reminds me of the whole "Gingrich Revolution" & the Contract with America back in the early 90's. One of the main points was term limits for Congress; once the Republicans took control of Congress in '94, Gingrich said something along the lines of "Well, now that the American people have the leadership they want, there's really no need for term limits."
What bothers me about term limits is that they are essentially saying: You are too stupid to know who to vote for and, since you are destined to vote at least one idiot into office, the government has to set limits so the fool you elected can only do so much damage. Term limits are based on the assumption that every politician elected sucks and that the electorate is too stupid to know the difference. Your vote is your term limit. If a constituency doesn't like someone, they have the right to vote him/her out of office. Of course, that doesn't account for Jesse Helms...hmmmmm...
Why do we limit the number of times a person can occupy the office of the presidency then? Not having term limits sets up our elective offices as grabs for power not as providing service to the nation. If not having term limits is such a great thing, why do we have so many dummies in elective office? Riddle me that! If you say it's because we voted them in then, fine, I say we need protection from ourselves. We have a ton of laws which do that already in various ways. It's not a new idea. Term-limits is about sharing (more to the point "not hogging") the responsibility to run our country. I think I'll start a new campaign: TERM-LIMITS FOREVER!
If not having term limits is such a great thing, why do we have so many dummies in elective office? Riddle me that! Because once you get into office, you have enormous advantages when running for re-election so it's much easier to stay there. The problem with term-limits is that you'll have a bunch of inexperienced morons in Congress. You'll have a bunch of people who think they know everything -- but really know nothing -- trying to change this and make reforms without knowing what the hell they are doing. I think that, ultimately, would be worse than what we have now.
Granted but why not choose the simpler solution and just have term-limits. Elective office is about money, greed, power and money instead of wisdom, generosity and servitude. Is there any doubt about that. I realize that I am oversimplifying and that not every elected official is crooked but our system as is puts us subject to those who would have those baser motives. Why not weed them out de facto with a term-limit?
Because, as Major stated earlier, it's much easier for an incumbant to raise money than for whoever is challenging them in the primary. Term limits are a red-herring, the real issue is the way campaigns are funded.
Explain why campaign finance is not the red herring? Isn't a term-limit law a much simpler and straightforward solution?
We don't implicity trust the people who manufacture food. We imply that they are too dishonest and greedy to use safe methods and worthy ingredients. We have laws meant to enforce rectitude in every arena. Yes, we have them in politics, but how are they working? Nothing would work better than there being no tomorrow for the grafters. Too sweet.
It sure is simple, is that a good thing? Isn't one of the basic tennents of our democracy the ability of the people to choose their representatives, and not have the government make de-facto choices for us?
I think the real problem is the advent of the career politician. Our founders were men with rewarding lives outside of politics (as farmers, businessmen, etc.). They had no desire to stay in office forever because they wanted to get back to their homes (which, BTW, tended to be in more hospitable climate and terrain than swampy, muggy Washington D.C.). However, as the pay rates for our leaders grew, as travel between home and D.C. grew easier, and as DC became a nice place to live, many people realized that there was good money and good living in politics. So that's what they did and as a result, you see career politicians now. My suggestion would be make federal politics more like a volunteer job. Drop the pay and perks and maybe we'll get someone who's more concerned about the country and less about their own pocketbook. Of course, that also might mean nobody wants to run for office and the whole system collapses. Damn, nothing's easy.
How old do you have to be to run for president? Can you be a naturalized citizen and run for president? And how many petititoners do you have to get signatures for in order to get on the ballot? See we already do dictate in some ways. The government wouldn't be choosing who could run any more than they do now. They would be making a choice about who could not run-- the guy or gal who just ate up their term-limit. The point is that there are plenty of qualified candidates out there. Our system is lugubrious and gives the incumbents too big an advantage. Get someone else in there. Strom Thurmond as a senator is ridiculous. Are you telling me that South Carolina's and the nation's interest wouldn't be better served by another man or woman having held that office for the past couple of decades?
<b>subtomic</b>: Those are extremely valid points. Going "volunteer" may be too extreme, though! Let's not forget the perks of being, say, a senator. What are they? 1. Exemption from Social Security participation 2. Private retirement plan 3. Generous pension 4. Others?
Explain why campaign finance is not the red herring? Isn't a term-limit law a much simpler and straightforward solution? I assume you agree that underlying problem is that people are in office who shouldn't be. The question is, does this apply to ALL of our representatives, or is there just a segment that shouldn't be there? I would say that only some of these people should no longer be there. In that case, a campaign finance solution helps weed out the idiots while leaving the good ones there; term-limits, on the other hand, would weed out the good guys too. I think experience can be a very good and important things for our senior leaders (President, Speaker of the House, etc). You can't gain as much experience with term limits. For example, I think John McCain is a good example of someone who's sat there and learned what works and doesn't work. He knows how bad pork is and stuff and would fight it whereas a new guy probably thinks porks sounds great -- especially if they don't have to answer to anyone since they are term-limited anyway. He also has more experience with the military than a new ex-lawyer politician who's going to come in and try to do change things his way. I'd much prefer someone like him have the opportunity to continue in the Senate if the voters keep electing him. Also, if a politician is term-limited, there's no incentive during that last term to do what's right, since they don't answer to anybody. Instead, they'll just do whatever they feel like. I just think campaign finance / voter education is a much more effective solution to the problem (albeit more difficult). On the money/pay issue, I disagree with the sentiment here. They don't get paid crazy sums of money. Yes, its alot, but many of these people could earn just as much or more in the private sector. Right now, I think its more of a status symbol -- that's why you have crazy millionaires running just because they can.
