Another broken Republican promise.....

I never understood why anyone would commit to a term limit, when everyone knows its almost impossible to get anything done in the house or senate your first couple of terms. I know a few people stuck to their pledges to limit their time in office, but most have done a 180 degree turn when they realized seniority was the only way to power.

 

Paul Wellstone(D-Minn) said the same thing and then reneged on it and was running for a 3rd term as senator prior to his unfortunate death.

Perhaps your title should be "Another politician breaks a promise..."

 

UO...


I am not really decided on term limits, but I did see this flaw in your statement above;

If everyone was limited, wouldn't relative seniority change? If everyone was limited to, say, 2 terms, wouldn't the premise that you can't get anything done in your 2st or second term fly out the window? Wouldn't it, actually, eleiminate the very priority on seniority that you are saying holds things up?

 

You're right. No one would have clicked on the thread!

 

Of course if we had manditory term limits across the board they would work, but the majority of members of the House and Senate do not abide by any personal set limits (nor would they vote for limits). The incoming officials know this and have a great campaign promise that is easy to break-- they have a ready made excuse. I'm really undecided as far as term limits go myself--there are positives and negatives both ways. Strom being the "poster child" for limits while a high turnover rate relative to the typical Senate tenure (say 2 terms) is not a great idea either.

 

I will say one thing for him, at least he's telling people going in to this election (which would be his last if he term limited himself) that he will seek re-election the next time around if he wins instead of waiting until 2006 to let people know he's broken his pledge.

I don't know why, but I think that's slightly better than just running again and not letting anyone know he's breaking the pledge until 2006.

 

Without term limits, we are ruled by a political elite who are constantly re-elected so much as to represent a nobility. What happened to the Cincinatus ideal, where upon one did their duty for the people and then returned to a business or their farm? Most politicians are lawyers, so I guess we know the answer to that one. I think this is a key answer to why our once great republic has transitioned to a horrid, majority rule democracy and away from the Founders' original vision for our nation. To today's political elites (in both parties), the Constitution is to be bypassed and ignored in favor of granting more favors in exchange for their nirvana, re-election. Absolute power absolutely corrupts.

 

One has to remedy two problems before this term limits thing would ever stick: a.) seniority counts for something in congressional chairmanships and committees - if every one does NOT do it, the term limits officials' *electorate* is punished. b.) incumbents have a huge advantage in running for reelection - one has to equalize the playing field.

Then there's the problem of losing the few good congressman but that would be OK if we got rid of permanent politicians IMHO.

 

Good point about incumbents, but remember that new "campaign finance reform" that Bush signed? Think about what that does for incumbents. Say I have a city bypass that's about to built through my front door and I get together a citizens group to oppose this bypass. Let's say that candidate A, the incumbent representative, supports this bypass. Let's assume candidate B supports our efforts. Our group makes a commercial that merely says that candidate A supports the bypass, which will displace families, cause pollution, destroy ecosystems, etc, etc. Under the new law, even if we don't mention candidate B by name, just the simple use of candidate A constitutes a violation of the "issue ads" part of this awful bill. An incumbent has access and face time in all the media, since he is the elected representative, thus giving him free campaign adverts since most people vote name recognition in congressional elections. So instead of making politics not a career option (which term limits did), Bush and all those who voted for it not only circumvented the First Amendment (which says rather neatly "Congress shall make NO law.....) but also helped make it that much easier to be reelected and preserve the political elite which enslave us to this day.

 

I personally support the idea of term limits as well as other election reform.

On the term limits side, I think that 12 years is more than enough for a Representative or a Senator (2 terms for senators, 6 for representatives). Term limits would have an impact on the dynamics in Washnigton, and I think it would be for the better. Instead of cliques that you have to be a career politician to break into, there would be more temporary alliances and lots of "new blood" and new ideas.

On the "other" election reforms, I support totally publicly funded elections. Bush has raised over $200 million already for the upcoming election. Tony Sanchez spent $60 million to lose the campaign for Texas Governor. I think that the government should bid out the media contracts every year to cover ALL television ads and distribute the ad slots equally to all candidates. The only way we are going to make sure that big money doesn't run our candidates and elected officials is to make sure that big money doesn't run our elections.

Of course, both of these ideas are non starters because the Republicans and Democrats have too much to lose.

 

If we remedied these two problems, we would not need term limits.

 

Wellstone was my political hero, but the term limits thing stuck in my craw.

I don't think ANY politician should serve more than 10 years. PERIOD. Once you've been in that long, you become part of the problem. New faces and new ideas are needed to keep the system from becoming too bureaucratic, lobbyist-driven and stale.