This is kind of a spin off from the thread discussing political lobbies...I'm looking for opinions for the good and bad that would come from instituting term limits for both the House of Rep's and the Senate. It seems the people that continually get re-elected have a 'block' vote (not necessarily the majority of constituents), which seems to guarantee victory as long as the block is happy. This at least seems to hold true in my area. Would it not be smart to incorporate some sort of term limit for the Senate and the House? It seems many have gotten too 'fat and happy' and are quite comfortable meeting only the needs of the block, and not thinking of the greater good. Granted, this could all be avoided if 100% of Americans voted, but sadly they do not. Do you think term limits would create a more or less effective Congress?
I've been saying this for years. It will never happen unless it is done by executive order. It still would be hard to get the corruption out of congress even with term limits.
I believe it would do way more good than bad. My goal would be to eliminate career politicians from our government.
What you say may be true but it's time they understand, they represent the people and the states-NOT the party. Congress was never envisioned as a full time job and to that end, I say put in term limits. A viable 3 or more party system might help some of our problems also.
The current state of affairs will never change without term limits. It MUST happen for the success of our democracy...period.
Yes I do believe there should be term limits as well as age limits. Case in point Dianne Feinstein, age 79 & Frank Lautenberg, age 89.
Yes, I believe they should be instituted. Right now too many congressmen are worried more about keeping their job than they are about doing what's best for their constituants. The trouble is that the only people who can change that are the very people who want to keep their jobs, so it will never happen.
My thoughts are to Require 60% of the vote to remain in office after the first term. This would weed out the ineffective career politicians, while still Enabling the good ones to remain where they are.
And that is exactly the reason it should be implemented. If in order to keep my current job, meant raising enough money so in 2 more years I needed to reapply for it, I think I would be doing things way differently than I am now. This seems to be the idea on all House of Reps minds more so than passing good legislation.
Is this potentially a failure of proper checks and balances? The framers of the nation certainly did not mean for member of Congress to make a living off of politics, as thats pretty much why they fought a revolution. Dr. Carson who has been receiving a lot of media attention following his day of prayer speach summarizes this belief pretty well. He said that the problem with our current political environment is that the common pipeline for entering politics is through law school. In law school, students are taught to win their cases at all costs, not taking into account the viewpoint of the attorney on the other side of the case, as they are the enemy. Does this characteristic lend itself to thoughful debates in the halls of Congress? I think our current Congress is answering this on their own.
Along with term limits, maybe change the House to a 4 year term instead of 2. That way we MIGHT get more work out of them instead of seeing them hit the campaign trail 2 months after an election. OR we find a way to get all 537 people out of office at one time. The devil is in the details though.
I'm not opposed to term limits, but I don't think it will fix much. As the liberal/conservative districts would still vote for similar candidates accordingly. Fed gov't has gotten much bigger (and invasive) than originally envisioned. If the fed gov't was pared back to the originally delegated powers ONLY, I would remedy a number of problems including their ineffectiveness. Regardless the term limits are a solution, but are they the best solution for present problems?
Get rid of the hefty pay and lifelong benefits and that will start to thin them a little. Term limits would be great though.
Well in my opinion setting term limits will have as much ups as many downs. On the good side, someone who is bad or corrupt can only serve X amount of years. On the bad side, a good congressman/woman who has consolidated power over the years has the influence needed to carry out their goals, but that can also work in reverse. By rotating out people so often, you also rotate out experience, experience which all has to be learned over and over again. The president switches out every 4-8 years, if it somehow timed out that the majority of congress switched out at the same time, we could end up losing alot of experience, influence and information. I agree with dmen, the hefty pay and lifelong benefits should be reduced. But there is once again 2 sides to that, we would lose out on top tier candidates and also for those people in congress who don't own a business, the pay is relatively low compared to their peers. Working in DC and working in another state adds up, by no means are they poor, but they wouldn't be as well off as their peers.
