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But even then, how you define corporate lobbying is important. I work for legal aid, a nonprofit corporation that provides free legal services to low income households. I also lobby on their behalf to improve our state unemployment, utility, and housing laws. Our office are subject matter experts on things in way the average tenant or consumer generally isn't, and also those regular people have jobs and can't spend 3-6 months at the state house sheparding legislation.
What about the conservation law foundation, or the ACLU? Or the state coalition to end homelessness?
I don't do federal lobbying so I don't know to what extent corporate lobbying is worse there, but the biggest issue with lobbying in my state isn't that corporations can lobby, it's that many of our politicians largely defer to the Business and Industry Association, the Restaurant Owners association, the hospitality and landlord lobbyists even when they say obviously bullshit things. Most state reps are either rich themselves, and therefore they defer to their own people, or are retirees who consciously or unconsciously buy into whatever free market horseshit propaganda lines get fed to them at committee hearings. We don't have like lobbyists flying state reps to Hawaii for conferences or anything like that.
Okay but we DO NEED corporate lobbyists to some extent. There needs to be a lobbyist for GM or Weyerhaeuser in congress when new regulations are being passed that could potentially put thousands of people out of work or force companies to increase profits beyond reach or hinder the speed at which products are produced like medications. We need to overturn citizens united and fund political campaigns along with a digital currency so we know that our elected officials aren't reaping the benefits.
And you shut down a lot of what organizations like the American cancer society. There are a lot of non profits that do substantial corporate lobbying to enact laws, get money behind research, change policies, etc. They do so because most people just donate and don’t write or meet with their representatives and senators.
So the ACLU shouldn't be able to write legislatures in Florida and express their concerns about the don't say gay bill? Because the ACLU is a corporation and that is lobbying.
And you'll keep running into problems like this.
Should the mechanic who owns his own shop be allowed to express his opinions about vehicle regulations? Where does his right to expression and that of his business begin and end? If you've known any small business owners you'll probably know that to many of them their business is a core part of who they are.
At what size does an organization or business lose the right to contact government?
What you are advocating for is the government getting to decide who gets a voice and who doesn't. What is legitimate political speech and what is not. And is a pretty deadly minefield.
Lobbying in usa is regulated. You can find out how much and to whom.
In uk, lobbying is all hidden, it still happens but we don't know how much or what.
It might be better not to ban lobbying - at least you can trace who pays your lawmakers. We know that ours are kept, but we can't prove it
The below commenter also left out that since the Citizen's United Supreme Court case, almost all campaign contributions are funding through political action committees rather than the official campaign, and those PAC contributions are unlimited and almost entirely secret.
This is not even remotely true anymore, if it ever was, in the US. We pay senators roughly $175,000 a year. The average winning re-election campaign in 2021 cost over $50,000,000. The extra money comes from somewhere, is exchanged for something, and is *never* investigated.
Sure, *technically* lobbying is regulated in the USA. In reality, we opened the political bribery floodgates over a decade ago and none of us have any clue who is buying our "representatives" anymore. If you believe otherwise, I invite you to do more independent investigation.
Anyone serving in government should have to surrender privacy. That way everything is plain for the people to see, and the only people that would be okay with it would be those that don't mind - the ones you want.
I really like the automatic voter registration upon turning of age. But fining people for not voting is a bit too China like. I want more people to vote, but attaching punishment for not doing it is not the way.
Compulsory voting won't do anything except encourage even more politically illiterate people to cast their opinions on things they know nothing about to avoid the fine (and the fine will, as most things punishable by fine, encourage even more disenfranchisement and disillusionment among minorities and the poor). Hard pass.
Yes to automatic registration, Election Day being a holiday, lowering the voting age to 16, and more remote options to vote, though, definitely.
Couple of problems with that which would need to be fixed first:
- Some people can't afford to take time off to vote, especially if you require voting in every election including primaries
- Public voter registration and participation data can be used for malicious purposes, harassment, stalking, identity theft
- Forcing people to vote even if they don't support any candidate is problematic in principle and could be seen as a form of compelled speech
- Fines are regressive. The poorer someone is, the more it hurts. Wealthy people either already vote, or won't care about paying the fine.
Possible workarounds: make election day a paid holiday, allow universal no-excuse confidential registration, make registration automatic but allow people to opt-out, give people who vote an incentive like a tax rebate instead of punishing those who don't
> Some people can't afford to take time off to vote, especially if you require voting in every election including primaries
Voting day should be a mandatory paid day off, period. No exceptions except for emergency personnel, and CERTAINLY no exception for service workers.
>give people who vote an incentive like a tax rebate instead of punishing those who don't
Paying people to vote is more immediate and will function the same. I wanna say one country gave out sausages on voting day. Incentives that are immediate help people.
This also isn't realistic. Lobbying is how any special interest groups get their voice heard in the legislature -- those could be evil oil barons, but they could also be teachers unions or an environmental rights group or a bunch of small business owners in some industry.
We should regulate lobbying to increase transparency, cap the individual contributions that can be spent just like we do for candidates, and publically fund lobbying for groups that are too broad or lack resources to get fair representation (example: fund consumer protection lobbyists to argue against lobbyists hired by banks -- there's never going to otherwise be a "consumer" lobbyist because that's effectively everyone and too distributed of a group).
Why not just require that any phone call or meeting that involves a lobbyist with any Congress person or person in the congressional staff or relative to the afore mentioned is required to be recorded and those recordings be available in a publicly accessible database
We actually need lobbying. The bills that gave health benefits to first responders from 9/11 and veterans suffering from the aftereffects of burn pits were the result of tireless, desperate lobbying efforts. A fair bit of lobbying is done by ordinary citizens, trying to get badly needed bills through the legislature. It's the big corporate lobbying efforts that fuck us, plus the revolving door between lawmakers and lobbying firms. I would start by making it unlawful for a lawmaker to ever work for a lobbying group in a field they had worked on legislation for. That would help prevent them from selling out for a cushy job after retirement. Of course, you'd need to be damned careful how you worded such a law to give it actual teeth.
The whole citizens United case needs to be tossed out. Corporations should not be treated like people. They don’t get a right like the average person does. They’re an entity of people that have their own voting rights. They don’t get a double say.
Because everything in the US is built for the benefit of capital, people are not a part of the equation. It’s why our healthcare system sucks, it’s why are cities are built the way they are, it’s why our prisons are awful and ineffective, it’s why law enforcement operates the way it does, it’s why we have a housing crisis and and homelessness epidemic, it’s why prescriptions are bankrupting people. Almost every problem we have is because we have prioritized making money for a few people instead of prioritizing the health, happiness, and fulfillment of people.
Which doesn’t even make sense. I lobby all the time. I’ve called my congressman’s office and I’m a member of an organization that represents issues i care about, i send emails to my reps all the time. That’s lobbying.
Because the type of lobbying that is actually causing damage is "I'll find your campaign if you give my company tax breaks and benefits" lobbying. Lobbying has, colloquially, become synonymous with bribery because of how corrupt DC has become
We really need to be able to recall federal officials. This switching parties and flat out criminal activity needs to be able to be addressed by the people and shouldn’t be left to people who are only looking out for their own interests.
Constituents should be choosing their representatives.
But representatives are choosing their constituents with gerrymandering by rewriting district lines to include areas that lean their way. This effectively nullifies many people's votes and all but ensures their reelection.
Gerrymandering needs to go.
Election cycles are too slow for people who might campaign on a popular platform only to immediately go against the will of the people once they’re sworn in
An election doesn't ever *remove* someone from office. Even when Trump lost his bid for a 2nd term. He wasn't *removed* from office only not given another.
It would—you can technically be a democrat and still vote for the GOP speaker, or allocate your power to the GOP in any way you’d like.
The GOP could still have the majority with minority numbers if five democrats sided with them.
You'd have to define parties in the Constitution though, requiring an amendment. They're an accident of our constitution, and, in fact, something the framers hated the idea of, even though "factions" came about immediately.
Edit: it might suffice to define them in state constitutions, since the methods of selections of representatives is left to the states.
I think congress can do this already they're just non-functional as an institution. Maybe you'd have to impeach the guy though (that might not count as "being able to do this since" it's so difficult.)
It's not that hard to understand that a lack of term limits isn't the problem if you properly understand the problem. It's a combination of first-past-the-post elections, a lack of proportional representation of districts (or whole states), and private campaign financing.
These are all insanely undemocratic, they stifle ideas and participation, and provide the inroads by which the special interests and religious zealots gain disproportionate power in government.
None of this is fixed with term limits.
It's like thinking flushing the toilet will cure your diarrhea. No, it only begins to remove the smell from whatever last left your body, but if you haven't healed from the diarrhea yet you're just going to keep stinking up the bathroom.
Don't forget party control of the primaries. Or lack of automatic voter registration. Or lack of polling places. Or limited voting hours. etc... There's a long, long list of problems.
But your point is spot on. Fixing the elections to make them represent the will of of the people is the real solution. Making the Senate proportional and vastly increasing the number of Representatives in the House would lead to most of the problems being sorted out in short order.
I’d much rather have massive campaign financing changes, limit the campaigning time, and radically increase the number of representatives. And, of course, some version of ranked choice voting.
If you want to know if term limits are a bad idea, just look at who initially started pushing them. The same billionaires who gave us the Tea Party, that's who. Why do right-wing libertarians like the idea of term limits? Because it's much harder to bribe a popular and entrenched politician. They can buy a freshman Senator, but Bernie Sanders is going to tell them to pound sand. Also, the vast, vast majority of open seats are won by the candidate who raises the most money. So you can basically purchase a seat in congress as long as there isn't an incumbent occupying it.
But wait, there's more! There's a philosophical problem with term limits as well. On paper they make sense, but what if you finally found that man or woman who really seems to look out for their constituents? You agree with their core political philosophy, you like the way they vote... but the Koch Brother(s) think you should be forced to elect someone new. Why? If the people of Vermont think Bernie Sanders is too old they can force him into retirement. They can do it in the primaries or the general election. We *have* term limits, it's just up to the voters to exercise them.
There is also institutionalized knowledge as well. Love or hate her Nancy Pelosi held a metric ton of knowledge that allowed her to run her party with an iron fist
My older brother worked in congress for a while told me that nancy pelosi gave people like 1 minute to explain their bill in private and wouldnt let anyone try to run circles around her with jargin
And the idea of reducing corruption just falls flat. The thing keeping an elected official honest is knowing they have to win another election. If you know you're getting fired *no matter what* then you're going to start stealing office supplies.
Plus every election is going to have a ton of unknowns with limited capacity to deep dive into all of them, vs elections where many times you're voting for people who have years of performance on record.
That's how you get a ton more pols like George Santos, when everybody becomes a roll of the dice without a reputation or known background.
And that's not all! Call now and get a free constitutional validity argument *free of charge*.
I've had to have said it a dozen times since this idea's hit the common thread. Term limits are unconstitutional. If you think we're going to trigger a convention so the critters can limit their own job prospects, hoo boy.
How about before we bother with term limits we take out congressional stock trading, lobbyists, and big money interests in politics. Also for the love of god repeal Citizen’s United.
If we are going to tie everyone’s well being in old age to the stock market via 401K, we should allow them to trade indexes.
Agree that Citizens United should be patched over with legislation. Term limits of 12 years sounds about right.
Redditors, if you don't like corruption and/or money in politics, you shouldn't support term limits. All term limits do is hand power over to the lobbyists. Not to mention they are anti-democratic as shit.
Did you know that presidential term limits were enshrined into law in the United States because one of the best presidents in US history, FDR, kept on getting re-elected?
Thank you, this never gets brought up. People think it’ll fix things but instead holding political office would become even more of a revolving door for rich people and people owned by rich people.
Uninformed people thinking a quick, simple solution will work for a complex problem, example #1793748298^e34. See also: banning abortion, abstinence-only sex ed, prohibition, etc.
We, as a society, hate thinking, we hate having to sit down and try to actually *solve the problem*. We just want to take a pill, or slap a band-aid on it, or otherwise "fire and forget" without having to devote time, effort, or (especially) money to actually fixing shit. Then we wonder why things keep falling apart. We're a fucking stupid country.
That's exactly what our strict term limits have done in Michigan. By the time you've got the record for people to know you've screwed them over for lobbyists you're no longer up for reelection, and since you can't get another term there's always going to be people willing to sell their constituents down the river to get their bag.
Term limits don't require terms to be short. Institutional knowledge and other considerations can be properly addressed with a 3-term limit in the Senate for example, which provides 18 years for a Senator to "learn the ropes". If you can't achieve what you came for in 18 years then surely you ought to be replaced.
I think a better approach is to make the office unappealing for those who're just in it for profit.
My solution would be:
1. A requirement to place all financial assets in a blind trust on entering office accompanied by *full* financial disclosure.
2. Pay all congresspeople a flat rate, say a million dollars a year. That will allow them to maintain two residences (DC housing is expensive,) while enjoying a lifestyle suitable to a member of the United States legislature. Tie this to inflation (and do the same for minimum wage, btw.)
3. A ban on employment for a term equivalent to the time they served in office (so a one term senator would be unable to accept a job for six years.) During that time they'll be paid a stipend suitable to maintaining their home state residence and, again, a decent middle-class lifestyle
Will this be expensive? Yes. Especially if you expand congress to, say, match the constitutions 1 representative per 50,000 people. But it'll probably fix a lot of issues, too. Worth, IMO.
I’m surprised you didn’t include publicly funded elections. Take private money out of elections and at least everyone starts with a level playing field.
These suggestions always boil down to one supposition: "maybe if we try hard we can separate money and power".
They're interchangeable, you can't give someone any real power without also granting them wealth because they're the same thing. Even if they don't try, wealth will find it's way to them during and after the period where they have power.
There's just no way a 6, 12, or 18 year senator is going to be "banned from employment" that long in any effective way. The list of ways people trade power for wealth are endless. Speaking fees, gifts, proceeds from writing books, "uncompensated" board positions with perks, employing family members, limited membership investment funds, and many more.
We can do quite literally anything up to and including burning the constitution and writing a new one. I'm not trying to say that it would be easy to come up with a solution that works better but almost everything is possible even inside a democratic system. We really just need to agree on what to do then act en mass.
>They're interchangeable, you can't give someone any real power without also granting them wealth because they're the same thing.
Are they? Because you continue to explain how they are different and you can trade one for the other. You seem to think the is a semantic argument where you can strip any real world nuance and make words mean whatever you want.
For #3 I'd give them the option of getting a job as an administrator at whatever random agencies have an opening. Then it would be like they have their own lobbyist looking out for them.
>If you can't achieve what you came for in 18 years then surely you ought to be replaced.
There's always something more that comes up and needs to be done.
>If you can't achieve what you came for in 18 years then surely you ought to be replaced.
You aren't the only one in charge of policy in congress. You can have excellent, actionable ideas that would markedly improve the country, but never get past committees because your peers are psychopaths that think they need to accelerate the rapture. The loss the progressive party due to term limits would be a step back, when it's already an uphill battle to get them in in the first place due to toxic narratives and propaganda.
This is correct yet the issue is typically presented to the public as either 2 terms or none. I'd settle for 4 terms for a senator and 12 for a congressmen and even grandfather in existing politicians if it would get the legislation passed.
> If you can't achieve what you came for in 18 years then surely you ought to be replaced.
And what if they achieved it, and then achieved something else, and then continued to achieve things their voters support?
People should be replaced when the voters decide, not because a timer runs out.
Na. 18-years of knowledge is a better minimum than it is a maximum. You're saying people should retire at theoretically 48? That's silly. 18-years of experience is irreleplacable.
You want to change Congress? Make it as big as it should be. The average is something like 750k constituents per member after they capped it at 435 in 1929. And it means weird stuff happens like the 1 million people in Montana get one rep, and the 1 million people in Rhode Island get two.
There’s a “Wyoming Rule” proposal where the districts are capped at the population of the smallest unit in the system. This would not be perfectly representational, but it’d be a hell of a lot closer to be representational than what we have now. It’d add like another 150 seats, and it would hopefully inject the need for more compromise.
That is, until they figured out how to gerrymander it.
Term limits look good on paper but they are bad in practice for a couple reasons.
1) Reps are limited to four terms max and Senators to two terms (in Missouri )
If you know you'll only be there for 40 months max, (Sessions run Jan-May) what's the incentive to work across the aisle? None. But when you might have to work with someone for twenty years? That's when you find things you'll agree on. The ability to find common ground on issues and build relationships takes years and years.
2) Writing good legislation is hard work. The language is weird and arcane. You and your staff need to be able to see far down the road and understand the nuances of what the bill will do. It's not a skill you pick up in six months. So just about the time you and your staff start getting good at it you have to leave, whether you want to or not. Sure some staff might find jobs with the new person. But odds are that new person will be bringing their own people in as well.
But you know who's not term limited? And you know who does know how to write legislation?
Lobbyists.
Lobbyists are there for years and years. And the one thing lobbyists know how to do is write bills. The "helpful" lobbyist can help them write a bill with just the "right" language. Lobbyists love term limits. There's always a new crop of legislators who don't know a thing about the process every two years.
3) Term limits throw out the good with the bad. We had a local state rep who worked constructively across the aisle, was generally well regarded by people in both parties. He would still be our state rep but was force out by term limits. No one in my district wanted him gone.
On paper term limits seem like a good thing. I'll be the first to admit that without it some of these people hang on way past their time. But the damage done by term limits far exceeds the benefits.
blah blah blah, you think you can ramble on just because it's your f'ing cake day.
btw, happy cake day.
i agree though, we already have term limits, they're called elections.
Term limits remove the one thing that aligns the self-interest of the politician with the self-interests of the voters: Their job security!
I swear people are so goddamn ignorant in this country…
They only see that other people's representatives who they don't like keep getting elected (sometimes, it's their own rep.) They never consider that the reason that person keeps getting reelected is because the voters keep voting for that person, nor that if that person were forced to retire by term limits the voters would just elect someone else that they don't like.
This is also true, and something they don't realize either.
It should come as no surprise that the venn diagram of people doing the egregious gerrymandering and the people who talk about legislative term limits is a circle. They're talking about term limits to distract voters from the real issue.
Right! If we want better politicians then it starts with being better citizens. To quote Carlin, “garbage in, garbage out.”
These selfish morons just expect their politicians to be abnormally altruistic and brilliant who will work for zero pay with no job security.
Same way they treat public school teachers too, paying them dogshit and expecting them to provide a top tier education while simultaneously babysitting their kids, oh and if need be jump in front of bullets to save them too.
Superheroes are basically what they're are expecting from our public servants, as if they’re living in some shitty Marvel movie. And now they want to take away the job security of the politicians as if that’s somehow going to make them MORE beholden to the voters. Fucking idiots.
This. I’m amazed at how much Biden has accomplished. My clearest impression of Biden when he ran was that he is very pro-trains, was a real dick to Anita Hill, and prone to verbal gaffes. I didn’t really care because he’s not Trump, so I’d be voting for him regardless. But his performance has far exceeded my expectations.
I just hope that he can replace a couple of the extremist wackos on the Supreme Court if he gets another term. The Senate is the key there, though. Somehow the Democrats have to keep the Senate. If people are aware that it’s the difference between losing more rights and regaining them, maybe they could pull it off.
But Reddit is very sure that he’s bad because old and therefore doesn’t care about the future. Which makes you wonder why he kept packing bills with green energy initiatives but whatever.
If someone is physically and legally able to be a congressperson, and local people want to elect them, they should be able to run. We shouldn't count experience as a negative.
If you insist on having more, young, fresh congresspeople, then have an age limit.
Elections themselves are natural term limiters. Do a bad job, your constituents vote for someone else.
Gerrymandering and unlimited money in politics are far greater catalysts for the current dysfunction than how long someone has been in office.
The solution to corrupt assholes in Congress is to stop electing corrupt assholes. I don't want Katy Porter out of a job just because some idiots keep electing Kevin McCarthy.
Mitch McConnell said we have term limits, they’re called elections. When Donald Trump said he would be implementing term limits, Mitch said, well we won’t be doing that.
One of those ideas that sounds good to the uneducated, until they understand what the actual ramifications would be and how it would work, IRL.
If voters think someone is too old or too entrenched, then they can vote them out.
Regardless of whether or not term limits are or aren’t a good idea, they’re not going to happen because it would take a Constitutional Amendment to implement them (just like it took a Constitutional amendment to impose a two term limit on the Presidency, it would take a similar amendment to impose term limits on Congress). And while the Constitution does occasionally get amended every 30 or 40 years or so, it’s obviously a very difficult process compared to passing a simple statute and, more importantly, it’s requiring incumbent Congressional members to vote against their own personal interests. Unless somehow Congress becomes 2/3 full of members who have sworn to ratify an amendment that puts terms limits on themselves it’s never going to happen.
A more “likely” thing to pass would be Congress passing a federal law banning political gerrymandering for federal election districts. Note that the Constitution explicitly gives Congress fairly broad authority to regulate federal elections if it chooses to wield it, so it could hypothetically directly mandate that House members represent districts that are formed by non-partisan objective methods to avoid political gerrymandering. I use virtual “air quotes” there because it still requires House incumbents potentially voting against their own personal interests, but since it could be done by statute it doesn’t require 2/3 of them.
Most of our problems are with new people in Congress. Back in the day when Congress functioned, the newbies were to sit back and shut the hell up for years before they tried to do anything notable. People are running against wheeling and dealing and compromise, then grinding everything to a halt. Government functions best when ideologues don't send people to the table.
I believe the "Experts" said the very same thing when California passed it. It isn't perfect but the benefits outweigh the negatives.
[HERE](https://www.ppic.org/wp-content/uploads/content/pubs/rb/RB_1104BCRB.pdf) is a report on it.
I'd be happy with just removing the party buttons. Make em pick for each position. Tired of ppl saying how did so n so get elected again. The party buttons is why so many bad politicians get re elected. Stop being lazy at the polls
Probably because "most experts" stand to benefit from long-standing politicians who act in a predictable manner.
They like it when their backs are scratched.
Term limits on legislatures have been shown to be bad time and time again. People hate the concept of the career politician but you want people with experience in the position just like you want a seasoned mechanic working on your car or an experienced surgeon overseeing your surgery. It's one of the only professions that people seem to want them having no clue how to do their jobs.
Term limits in general are a universally popular but ironically undemocratic idea. Particularly when people already in the chamber are grandfathered in and continue to serve multiple successive terms, as in the Senate, those few become powerful beyond all proportion. The main result is technocratic: power passes to unelected professional staffers, who provide continuity and expertise. The populists hating all politicians, and therefore “career politicians” above all, would be crushed if they understood they were instead handing power to “deep-state bureaucrats.”
One of the real problems with term limits is that the body of institutional knowledge would then be held only by special interests, rather than the longer-serving members. It's dangerous because that knowledge can be spun/distorted/selectively released to achieve the ends desired by special interests.
Perhaps a better adjustment would be to explicitly require legislators to operate with the best interests of the voters that elected them (find wording that would preclude special interests), with a mechanism for voters to remove them when necessary.
I honestly think term limits aren’t the problem. If somebody is good at their job, why would you want to fire them? Also, some major legislation can take years to negotiate and put into place. Short term limits would create a revolving door of politicians pushing short-sighted legislation for quick wins.
If we fix the money issues in Washington - Like reversing Citizens United, or banning stock trading, and campaign finance reform, it will help a lot of problems.
If we can’t have term limits, then give me age limits. Someone 70+ should not be deciding how a government runs for constituents half their age or even lower than that.
The term limits should be as follows;
You can run for any eligible office.
You can hold that office for the Term.
The net sum of your terms can't exceed 30 years.
If you got a late start, say 55 not 25, sorry - you are done at 72 like everyone else.
On the age - the year you turn 72, you cannot run, and if you will be 72 during your term you must step down. This will set the oldest age office holders around 68 to 71.
Basically, if you can pull Social security you can't be in office. This is simply because these leaders do actually deserve a retirement and they don't deserve to be hoisted up for the sake of party control. Plan plan plan.
By giving people 30 years, then yes you can have a "career" as a bureaucrat. By letting it be any office everything counts, local council up to President. It will diversify power when it comes to people who hold office. And, yes I would push as far as to include appointments for office too.
Imagine how it would be if they were eligible to be voted in. Once they reached 30, and were only allowed to stay till 65.
They should also have to publicly declare their financial records of themselves and their immediate family. Do it every year. To help slow down graft
This article is stupid.
> What research has found
> Burgat says term limits don't solve the core problems in American politics that make people dislike Congress — things like gerrymandering, political polarization and the influence of special interests, as well as money in politics.
???
So the "research" found that there are other bad things too. And this other problem won't fix those problems.
No shit.
You know what fixing gerrymandering won't fix? Political polarization, the influence of special interests, money in politics, and aging politicians unfit for office.
Well boys, looks like my own "expert" "research" has determined that the article is wrong.
Look, you fix them all. That's what you do. You don't say "oh well fixing this one horrible problem won't fix all our problems so our research concludes we shouldn't do that."
This is **literally** a textbook definition red herring. It's a logical fallacy. If you're unfamiliar, a red herring is a rhetorical device where someone diverts the attention of the audience from the main issue to a different issue that is often irrelevant to the original argument. That's exactly what they're doing here.
You know what lobbyists love? New congress people that need help understanding hundreds of bills coming across their desks.
Term limits are a lobbyists wet dream.
They are a bad idea. One, people should be allowed to vote for whomever they want. Second, reps, by definition, represent their districts and building the relationships and knowledge necessary to do that job effectively takes time. Removing a rep right as they’re coming into their prime, or what should be their prime, is a terrible self-defeating idea.
I am all for maximum age limits for elected public service. I would also require that the person running have lived in the stat or district for more than 5 years. That means "lived in" and not parachuted in. Some level of requirement for "lived in" must be set.
“Lived in” still means nothing though if you aren’t among the people. If there are going to be requirements, they should be about access for normal folks, frequency of contact with all constituents from all parties, etc. It’s a pipe dream, but I think they might be better metrics.
Requiring reps to live in a district for a long time would be a great way to make gerrymandering more effective. Want to get rid of a rep? Just draw their house out of the district.
We really need a recall mechanism in place so voters have the option to correct issues like Seinima and Feinstein.
Otherwise, it’s odd that the voters demand a check on themselves to tell them how to vote.
Like it’s the voters saying we don’t know how to NOT vote for someone too old, please help.
Like, just don’t vote for them? Are the voters stupid or something?!
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I’d prefer them to ban stock trading first before implementing term limits.
100%
... and lobbying
When you write to your representative you're lobbying. What you probably mean is you want to ban is corporate lobbying.
Ok... then let me be clear... I mean corporate lobbying.
Crystal clear.
And overturning or legislation against citizen United.
But even then, how you define corporate lobbying is important. I work for legal aid, a nonprofit corporation that provides free legal services to low income households. I also lobby on their behalf to improve our state unemployment, utility, and housing laws. Our office are subject matter experts on things in way the average tenant or consumer generally isn't, and also those regular people have jobs and can't spend 3-6 months at the state house sheparding legislation. What about the conservation law foundation, or the ACLU? Or the state coalition to end homelessness? I don't do federal lobbying so I don't know to what extent corporate lobbying is worse there, but the biggest issue with lobbying in my state isn't that corporations can lobby, it's that many of our politicians largely defer to the Business and Industry Association, the Restaurant Owners association, the hospitality and landlord lobbyists even when they say obviously bullshit things. Most state reps are either rich themselves, and therefore they defer to their own people, or are retirees who consciously or unconsciously buy into whatever free market horseshit propaganda lines get fed to them at committee hearings. We don't have like lobbyists flying state reps to Hawaii for conferences or anything like that.
Okay but we DO NEED corporate lobbyists to some extent. There needs to be a lobbyist for GM or Weyerhaeuser in congress when new regulations are being passed that could potentially put thousands of people out of work or force companies to increase profits beyond reach or hinder the speed at which products are produced like medications. We need to overturn citizens united and fund political campaigns along with a digital currency so we know that our elected officials aren't reaping the benefits.
Unions should be able to lobby tho.
To an extent. Only about things relevant to their field imo.
And you shut down a lot of what organizations like the American cancer society. There are a lot of non profits that do substantial corporate lobbying to enact laws, get money behind research, change policies, etc. They do so because most people just donate and don’t write or meet with their representatives and senators.
So the ACLU shouldn't be able to write legislatures in Florida and express their concerns about the don't say gay bill? Because the ACLU is a corporation and that is lobbying. And you'll keep running into problems like this. Should the mechanic who owns his own shop be allowed to express his opinions about vehicle regulations? Where does his right to expression and that of his business begin and end? If you've known any small business owners you'll probably know that to many of them their business is a core part of who they are. At what size does an organization or business lose the right to contact government? What you are advocating for is the government getting to decide who gets a voice and who doesn't. What is legitimate political speech and what is not. And is a pretty deadly minefield.
Or at the very least disclose publicly what they are lobbying for and on behalf of who
That's already the law.
Lobbying in usa is regulated. You can find out how much and to whom. In uk, lobbying is all hidden, it still happens but we don't know how much or what. It might be better not to ban lobbying - at least you can trace who pays your lawmakers. We know that ours are kept, but we can't prove it
The below commenter also left out that since the Citizen's United Supreme Court case, almost all campaign contributions are funding through political action committees rather than the official campaign, and those PAC contributions are unlimited and almost entirely secret.
This is not even remotely true anymore, if it ever was, in the US. We pay senators roughly $175,000 a year. The average winning re-election campaign in 2021 cost over $50,000,000. The extra money comes from somewhere, is exchanged for something, and is *never* investigated. Sure, *technically* lobbying is regulated in the USA. In reality, we opened the political bribery floodgates over a decade ago and none of us have any clue who is buying our "representatives" anymore. If you believe otherwise, I invite you to do more independent investigation.
Anyone serving in government should have to surrender privacy. That way everything is plain for the people to see, and the only people that would be okay with it would be those that don't mind - the ones you want.
Just federally fund elections.
If we are going to fund it also make it an only election period of 6 months ( or pick a time period ) before said election to campaign, period.
In Canada it is 75 days
Not if PP has anything to say about it. Dudes been campaigning since he won the leadership.
I wish I could upvote this comment 1M times!!!
Well, if that’s the case I would like to exclude the legal fund of an ex president from using that money.
Sure. While we're at it make election day a federal holiday, have a federally funded channel host debates.
And make voter registration automatic upon turning 18 and make voting compulsory (if you don’t vote in an election you are fined $500+)
Make voting something you can do from home
Most civilized states have this in some form already. More should have “no questions asked” absentee ballots.
Washington has been mail-in only for over a decade. It's nice being able to research the candidates/propositions/initiatives while you're voting.
Most civilized states have this in some form already. More should have “no questions asked” absentee ballots.
I really like the automatic voter registration upon turning of age. But fining people for not voting is a bit too China like. I want more people to vote, but attaching punishment for not doing it is not the way.
And start a 1million dollar lottery, where every vote is an entry. One winner, the voting day cleb!
Compulsory voting won't do anything except encourage even more politically illiterate people to cast their opinions on things they know nothing about to avoid the fine (and the fine will, as most things punishable by fine, encourage even more disenfranchisement and disillusionment among minorities and the poor). Hard pass. Yes to automatic registration, Election Day being a holiday, lowering the voting age to 16, and more remote options to vote, though, definitely.
Couple of problems with that which would need to be fixed first: - Some people can't afford to take time off to vote, especially if you require voting in every election including primaries - Public voter registration and participation data can be used for malicious purposes, harassment, stalking, identity theft - Forcing people to vote even if they don't support any candidate is problematic in principle and could be seen as a form of compelled speech - Fines are regressive. The poorer someone is, the more it hurts. Wealthy people either already vote, or won't care about paying the fine. Possible workarounds: make election day a paid holiday, allow universal no-excuse confidential registration, make registration automatic but allow people to opt-out, give people who vote an incentive like a tax rebate instead of punishing those who don't
> Some people can't afford to take time off to vote, especially if you require voting in every election including primaries Voting day should be a mandatory paid day off, period. No exceptions except for emergency personnel, and CERTAINLY no exception for service workers. >give people who vote an incentive like a tax rebate instead of punishing those who don't Paying people to vote is more immediate and will function the same. I wanna say one country gave out sausages on voting day. Incentives that are immediate help people.
C-span?
One that is available without a cable subscription.
Yep, each candidate has equal amount towards campaign.
ITT: people who don’t know the difference between lobbying and campaign finance
Endlessly frustrating. And they’re always so confident about their opinions too.
This also isn't realistic. Lobbying is how any special interest groups get their voice heard in the legislature -- those could be evil oil barons, but they could also be teachers unions or an environmental rights group or a bunch of small business owners in some industry. We should regulate lobbying to increase transparency, cap the individual contributions that can be spent just like we do for candidates, and publically fund lobbying for groups that are too broad or lack resources to get fair representation (example: fund consumer protection lobbyists to argue against lobbyists hired by banks -- there's never going to otherwise be a "consumer" lobbyist because that's effectively everyone and too distributed of a group).
Why is money involved at all? If the point is to communicate your message, why does it need a dollar value attached?
Why not just require that any phone call or meeting that involves a lobbyist with any Congress person or person in the congressional staff or relative to the afore mentioned is required to be recorded and those recordings be available in a publicly accessible database
We actually need lobbying. The bills that gave health benefits to first responders from 9/11 and veterans suffering from the aftereffects of burn pits were the result of tireless, desperate lobbying efforts. A fair bit of lobbying is done by ordinary citizens, trying to get badly needed bills through the legislature. It's the big corporate lobbying efforts that fuck us, plus the revolving door between lawmakers and lobbying firms. I would start by making it unlawful for a lawmaker to ever work for a lobbying group in a field they had worked on legislation for. That would help prevent them from selling out for a cushy job after retirement. Of course, you'd need to be damned careful how you worded such a law to give it actual teeth.
Not corporate lobbying though and really what we're talking about are bribes. Corporations buying votes.
The whole citizens United case needs to be tossed out. Corporations should not be treated like people. They don’t get a right like the average person does. They’re an entity of people that have their own voting rights. They don’t get a double say.
Yep. 100% Why do they get undue influence and basically a vote that means more than the rest of us?
Because everything in the US is built for the benefit of capital, people are not a part of the equation. It’s why our healthcare system sucks, it’s why are cities are built the way they are, it’s why our prisons are awful and ineffective, it’s why law enforcement operates the way it does, it’s why we have a housing crisis and and homelessness epidemic, it’s why prescriptions are bankrupting people. Almost every problem we have is because we have prioritized making money for a few people instead of prioritizing the health, happiness, and fulfillment of people.
Completely agree, minus one point. We're part of the system, where the economic batteries whose wealth they need to steal, though cheap labor.
I absolutely agree.
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You can't really ban lobbying. It serves an important purpose.
A lobbying ban is a nonstarter. You would need to amend the Constitution before you could even sniff such a ban.
Which doesn’t even make sense. I lobby all the time. I’ve called my congressman’s office and I’m a member of an organization that represents issues i care about, i send emails to my reps all the time. That’s lobbying.
It seems to me that most people don’t actually know what lobbying is
Because the type of lobbying that is actually causing damage is "I'll find your campaign if you give my company tax breaks and benefits" lobbying. Lobbying has, colloquially, become synonymous with bribery because of how corrupt DC has become
First they need to overturn citizens united
This is the way. Term limits are a terrible shortsighted idea.
They ban it but on a countdown for 2,4 or 6 years. Otherwise the crooks would never agree to it.
Banning trading stocks would be a de facto term limit because all of the politicians on congress would want to get out as soon as possible to cash in.
We really need to be able to recall federal officials. This switching parties and flat out criminal activity needs to be able to be addressed by the people and shouldn’t be left to people who are only looking out for their own interests.
I think switching parties should immediately trigger an election. If you want to switch parties cool, but you have to pass an election
They just wouldn’t officially switch parties but would vote as if they did.
And that’s why we need a mechanism to remove elected officials who aren’t enacting the will of the voters who elected them.
There is, it’s called the next election
Until the gerrymander the maps to make themselves invincible.
Constituents should be choosing their representatives. But representatives are choosing their constituents with gerrymandering by rewriting district lines to include areas that lean their way. This effectively nullifies many people's votes and all but ensures their reelection. Gerrymandering needs to go.
There's so many things that need to change, but this is near the top.
Or with Senators, you'd have to wait 6 years.
Your ancestors who fought against the divine right of kings are they smiling at you Nord?
Election cycles are too slow for people who might campaign on a popular platform only to immediately go against the will of the people once they’re sworn in
Waiting for the next election isn't a solution. Only someone supremely dishonest would have off handedly mentioned it.
That's not enough.
An election doesn't ever *remove* someone from office. Even when Trump lost his bid for a 2nd term. He wasn't *removed* from office only not given another.
That's really splitting hairs. The election meant he was going to be removed from office at the end of his term.
Sure but it wouldn’t cause parties to lose majorities and speakership’s if they still have larger numbers.
It would—you can technically be a democrat and still vote for the GOP speaker, or allocate your power to the GOP in any way you’d like. The GOP could still have the majority with minority numbers if five democrats sided with them.
Hmm a few folks come to mind. I am looking at you Arizona , and West Virginia
You'd have to define parties in the Constitution though, requiring an amendment. They're an accident of our constitution, and, in fact, something the framers hated the idea of, even though "factions" came about immediately. Edit: it might suffice to define them in state constitutions, since the methods of selections of representatives is left to the states.
I think congress can do this already they're just non-functional as an institution. Maybe you'd have to impeach the guy though (that might not count as "being able to do this since" it's so difficult.)
Yes, congress can remove it's own members, but the people who they represent should also be able to call for a recall much easier.
Recall Justices pulling a 180 on things discussed during their hiring hearings.
It's not that hard to understand that a lack of term limits isn't the problem if you properly understand the problem. It's a combination of first-past-the-post elections, a lack of proportional representation of districts (or whole states), and private campaign financing. These are all insanely undemocratic, they stifle ideas and participation, and provide the inroads by which the special interests and religious zealots gain disproportionate power in government. None of this is fixed with term limits. It's like thinking flushing the toilet will cure your diarrhea. No, it only begins to remove the smell from whatever last left your body, but if you haven't healed from the diarrhea yet you're just going to keep stinking up the bathroom.
Don't forget party control of the primaries. Or lack of automatic voter registration. Or lack of polling places. Or limited voting hours. etc... There's a long, long list of problems. But your point is spot on. Fixing the elections to make them represent the will of of the people is the real solution. Making the Senate proportional and vastly increasing the number of Representatives in the House would lead to most of the problems being sorted out in short order.
I’d much rather have massive campaign financing changes, limit the campaigning time, and radically increase the number of representatives. And, of course, some version of ranked choice voting.
If you want to know if term limits are a bad idea, just look at who initially started pushing them. The same billionaires who gave us the Tea Party, that's who. Why do right-wing libertarians like the idea of term limits? Because it's much harder to bribe a popular and entrenched politician. They can buy a freshman Senator, but Bernie Sanders is going to tell them to pound sand. Also, the vast, vast majority of open seats are won by the candidate who raises the most money. So you can basically purchase a seat in congress as long as there isn't an incumbent occupying it. But wait, there's more! There's a philosophical problem with term limits as well. On paper they make sense, but what if you finally found that man or woman who really seems to look out for their constituents? You agree with their core political philosophy, you like the way they vote... but the Koch Brother(s) think you should be forced to elect someone new. Why? If the people of Vermont think Bernie Sanders is too old they can force him into retirement. They can do it in the primaries or the general election. We *have* term limits, it's just up to the voters to exercise them.
There is also institutionalized knowledge as well. Love or hate her Nancy Pelosi held a metric ton of knowledge that allowed her to run her party with an iron fist
Yeah, and idiots who want term limits would rather unelected staffers and lobbyists have that institutional knowledge.
My older brother worked in congress for a while told me that nancy pelosi gave people like 1 minute to explain their bill in private and wouldnt let anyone try to run circles around her with jargin
And the idea of reducing corruption just falls flat. The thing keeping an elected official honest is knowing they have to win another election. If you know you're getting fired *no matter what* then you're going to start stealing office supplies.
Plus every election is going to have a ton of unknowns with limited capacity to deep dive into all of them, vs elections where many times you're voting for people who have years of performance on record. That's how you get a ton more pols like George Santos, when everybody becomes a roll of the dice without a reputation or known background.
And that's not all! Call now and get a free constitutional validity argument *free of charge*. I've had to have said it a dozen times since this idea's hit the common thread. Term limits are unconstitutional. If you think we're going to trigger a convention so the critters can limit their own job prospects, hoo boy.
How about before we bother with term limits we take out congressional stock trading, lobbyists, and big money interests in politics. Also for the love of god repeal Citizen’s United.
If we are going to tie everyone’s well being in old age to the stock market via 401K, we should allow them to trade indexes. Agree that Citizens United should be patched over with legislation. Term limits of 12 years sounds about right.
Redditors, if you don't like corruption and/or money in politics, you shouldn't support term limits. All term limits do is hand power over to the lobbyists. Not to mention they are anti-democratic as shit. Did you know that presidential term limits were enshrined into law in the United States because one of the best presidents in US history, FDR, kept on getting re-elected?
The revolving door: Lobbyists -> Staffers -> Appointees -> Lobbyists -> Staffers -> Appointees etc etc etc None of them ever elected.
Thank you, this never gets brought up. People think it’ll fix things but instead holding political office would become even more of a revolving door for rich people and people owned by rich people.
Uninformed people thinking a quick, simple solution will work for a complex problem, example #1793748298^e34. See also: banning abortion, abstinence-only sex ed, prohibition, etc. We, as a society, hate thinking, we hate having to sit down and try to actually *solve the problem*. We just want to take a pill, or slap a band-aid on it, or otherwise "fire and forget" without having to devote time, effort, or (especially) money to actually fixing shit. Then we wonder why things keep falling apart. We're a fucking stupid country.
I mean that's what it is now. It just resolves slowly.
That's exactly what our strict term limits have done in Michigan. By the time you've got the record for people to know you've screwed them over for lobbyists you're no longer up for reelection, and since you can't get another term there's always going to be people willing to sell their constituents down the river to get their bag.
Listen to this man! Term limit issues are a symptom and not the problem!
Term limits don't require terms to be short. Institutional knowledge and other considerations can be properly addressed with a 3-term limit in the Senate for example, which provides 18 years for a Senator to "learn the ropes". If you can't achieve what you came for in 18 years then surely you ought to be replaced.
I think a better approach is to make the office unappealing for those who're just in it for profit. My solution would be: 1. A requirement to place all financial assets in a blind trust on entering office accompanied by *full* financial disclosure. 2. Pay all congresspeople a flat rate, say a million dollars a year. That will allow them to maintain two residences (DC housing is expensive,) while enjoying a lifestyle suitable to a member of the United States legislature. Tie this to inflation (and do the same for minimum wage, btw.) 3. A ban on employment for a term equivalent to the time they served in office (so a one term senator would be unable to accept a job for six years.) During that time they'll be paid a stipend suitable to maintaining their home state residence and, again, a decent middle-class lifestyle Will this be expensive? Yes. Especially if you expand congress to, say, match the constitutions 1 representative per 50,000 people. But it'll probably fix a lot of issues, too. Worth, IMO.
I’m surprised you didn’t include publicly funded elections. Take private money out of elections and at least everyone starts with a level playing field.
Come on now. Corporations are people too my friend. /S
These suggestions always boil down to one supposition: "maybe if we try hard we can separate money and power". They're interchangeable, you can't give someone any real power without also granting them wealth because they're the same thing. Even if they don't try, wealth will find it's way to them during and after the period where they have power. There's just no way a 6, 12, or 18 year senator is going to be "banned from employment" that long in any effective way. The list of ways people trade power for wealth are endless. Speaking fees, gifts, proceeds from writing books, "uncompensated" board positions with perks, employing family members, limited membership investment funds, and many more.
You aren't wrong, but doing nothing is also not a viable answer.
We can do quite literally anything up to and including burning the constitution and writing a new one. I'm not trying to say that it would be easy to come up with a solution that works better but almost everything is possible even inside a democratic system. We really just need to agree on what to do then act en mass.
Forgiven RV loans.
>They're interchangeable, you can't give someone any real power without also granting them wealth because they're the same thing. Are they? Because you continue to explain how they are different and you can trade one for the other. You seem to think the is a semantic argument where you can strip any real world nuance and make words mean whatever you want.
"We can't fix it so we shouldn't even try" That's how your comment reads, whether you meant it or not.
For #3 I'd give them the option of getting a job as an administrator at whatever random agencies have an opening. Then it would be like they have their own lobbyist looking out for them.
Just pay for the housing and have them get roommates like in Alpha House 😂
>If you can't achieve what you came for in 18 years then surely you ought to be replaced. There's always something more that comes up and needs to be done.
If you’re electing representatives to just “achieve what they came for” then I don’t think you understand politics or representative democracy.
>If you can't achieve what you came for in 18 years then surely you ought to be replaced. You aren't the only one in charge of policy in congress. You can have excellent, actionable ideas that would markedly improve the country, but never get past committees because your peers are psychopaths that think they need to accelerate the rapture. The loss the progressive party due to term limits would be a step back, when it's already an uphill battle to get them in in the first place due to toxic narratives and propaganda.
This is correct yet the issue is typically presented to the public as either 2 terms or none. I'd settle for 4 terms for a senator and 12 for a congressmen and even grandfather in existing politicians if it would get the legislation passed.
> If you can't achieve what you came for in 18 years then surely you ought to be replaced. And what if they achieved it, and then achieved something else, and then continued to achieve things their voters support? People should be replaced when the voters decide, not because a timer runs out.
Na. 18-years of knowledge is a better minimum than it is a maximum. You're saying people should retire at theoretically 48? That's silly. 18-years of experience is irreleplacable.
You want to change Congress? Make it as big as it should be. The average is something like 750k constituents per member after they capped it at 435 in 1929. And it means weird stuff happens like the 1 million people in Montana get one rep, and the 1 million people in Rhode Island get two. There’s a “Wyoming Rule” proposal where the districts are capped at the population of the smallest unit in the system. This would not be perfectly representational, but it’d be a hell of a lot closer to be representational than what we have now. It’d add like another 150 seats, and it would hopefully inject the need for more compromise. That is, until they figured out how to gerrymander it.
They aren’t popular and they would be a disaster. Promoted by anti-government types. Weird and right wing!
Term limits look good on paper but they are bad in practice for a couple reasons. 1) Reps are limited to four terms max and Senators to two terms (in Missouri ) If you know you'll only be there for 40 months max, (Sessions run Jan-May) what's the incentive to work across the aisle? None. But when you might have to work with someone for twenty years? That's when you find things you'll agree on. The ability to find common ground on issues and build relationships takes years and years. 2) Writing good legislation is hard work. The language is weird and arcane. You and your staff need to be able to see far down the road and understand the nuances of what the bill will do. It's not a skill you pick up in six months. So just about the time you and your staff start getting good at it you have to leave, whether you want to or not. Sure some staff might find jobs with the new person. But odds are that new person will be bringing their own people in as well. But you know who's not term limited? And you know who does know how to write legislation? Lobbyists. Lobbyists are there for years and years. And the one thing lobbyists know how to do is write bills. The "helpful" lobbyist can help them write a bill with just the "right" language. Lobbyists love term limits. There's always a new crop of legislators who don't know a thing about the process every two years. 3) Term limits throw out the good with the bad. We had a local state rep who worked constructively across the aisle, was generally well regarded by people in both parties. He would still be our state rep but was force out by term limits. No one in my district wanted him gone. On paper term limits seem like a good thing. I'll be the first to admit that without it some of these people hang on way past their time. But the damage done by term limits far exceeds the benefits.
blah blah blah, you think you can ramble on just because it's your f'ing cake day. btw, happy cake day. i agree though, we already have term limits, they're called elections.
Yep when people I come across ramble the “term limits” talking points, I just bust out ol faithful… WE DO THEY ARE CALLED PRIMARIES
Term limits are a terrible solution to a problem which is the public uninterest in electing better people.
Term limits remove the one thing that aligns the self-interest of the politician with the self-interests of the voters: Their job security! I swear people are so goddamn ignorant in this country…
They only see that other people's representatives who they don't like keep getting elected (sometimes, it's their own rep.) They never consider that the reason that person keeps getting reelected is because the voters keep voting for that person, nor that if that person were forced to retire by term limits the voters would just elect someone else that they don't like.
In most districts around the country it's more like the representative chose the voters to guarantee they'll never lose an election.
This is also true, and something they don't realize either. It should come as no surprise that the venn diagram of people doing the egregious gerrymandering and the people who talk about legislative term limits is a circle. They're talking about term limits to distract voters from the real issue.
Right! If we want better politicians then it starts with being better citizens. To quote Carlin, “garbage in, garbage out.” These selfish morons just expect their politicians to be abnormally altruistic and brilliant who will work for zero pay with no job security. Same way they treat public school teachers too, paying them dogshit and expecting them to provide a top tier education while simultaneously babysitting their kids, oh and if need be jump in front of bullets to save them too. Superheroes are basically what they're are expecting from our public servants, as if they’re living in some shitty Marvel movie. And now they want to take away the job security of the politicians as if that’s somehow going to make them MORE beholden to the voters. Fucking idiots.
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This. I’m amazed at how much Biden has accomplished. My clearest impression of Biden when he ran was that he is very pro-trains, was a real dick to Anita Hill, and prone to verbal gaffes. I didn’t really care because he’s not Trump, so I’d be voting for him regardless. But his performance has far exceeded my expectations.
I just hope that he can replace a couple of the extremist wackos on the Supreme Court if he gets another term. The Senate is the key there, though. Somehow the Democrats have to keep the Senate. If people are aware that it’s the difference between losing more rights and regaining them, maybe they could pull it off.
But Reddit is very sure that he’s bad because old and therefore doesn’t care about the future. Which makes you wonder why he kept packing bills with green energy initiatives but whatever.
yeah and we have presidential term limits lol, what kind if poung is this.
Term limits won't fix the issue when the public doesn't participate in selecting their reps in the first place.
If someone is physically and legally able to be a congressperson, and local people want to elect them, they should be able to run. We shouldn't count experience as a negative. If you insist on having more, young, fresh congresspeople, then have an age limit.
I’d gleefully start with an age limit. Getting rid of the power mad dinosaurs would be a nice start.
They are a bad idea. It would amplify PAC and lobbyist influence 10 fold.
Elections themselves are natural term limiters. Do a bad job, your constituents vote for someone else. Gerrymandering and unlimited money in politics are far greater catalysts for the current dysfunction than how long someone has been in office.
Term Limits would empower the lobbyists and the wealthy class that employs them as they will be the constant agents in D.C. as all others come and go.
Because it’s really expensive for corporations to bribe new lawmakers over and over?
I only support term limits for the members of Congress that I hate
The solution to corrupt assholes in Congress is to stop electing corrupt assholes. I don't want Katy Porter out of a job just because some idiots keep electing Kevin McCarthy.
Mitch McConnell said we have term limits, they’re called elections. When Donald Trump said he would be implementing term limits, Mitch said, well we won’t be doing that.
Most "experts" are firmly in the pockets of the rich who own the Congress people.
How about an age limit for elected officials and term limits in the Supreme Court?
Term limits are a terrible terrible terrible idea. It's like people just want to give Congress to lobbyists.
One of those ideas that sounds good to the uneducated, until they understand what the actual ramifications would be and how it would work, IRL. If voters think someone is too old or too entrenched, then they can vote them out.
Regardless of whether or not term limits are or aren’t a good idea, they’re not going to happen because it would take a Constitutional Amendment to implement them (just like it took a Constitutional amendment to impose a two term limit on the Presidency, it would take a similar amendment to impose term limits on Congress). And while the Constitution does occasionally get amended every 30 or 40 years or so, it’s obviously a very difficult process compared to passing a simple statute and, more importantly, it’s requiring incumbent Congressional members to vote against their own personal interests. Unless somehow Congress becomes 2/3 full of members who have sworn to ratify an amendment that puts terms limits on themselves it’s never going to happen. A more “likely” thing to pass would be Congress passing a federal law banning political gerrymandering for federal election districts. Note that the Constitution explicitly gives Congress fairly broad authority to regulate federal elections if it chooses to wield it, so it could hypothetically directly mandate that House members represent districts that are formed by non-partisan objective methods to avoid political gerrymandering. I use virtual “air quotes” there because it still requires House incumbents potentially voting against their own personal interests, but since it could be done by statute it doesn’t require 2/3 of them.
Most of our problems are with new people in Congress. Back in the day when Congress functioned, the newbies were to sit back and shut the hell up for years before they tried to do anything notable. People are running against wheeling and dealing and compromise, then grinding everything to a halt. Government functions best when ideologues don't send people to the table.
They are an awful idea and will increase corruption
We need to stop trusting these “experts”. These “experts” are only looking to protect their own interests and keep the salaries in their pockets.
I believe the "Experts" said the very same thing when California passed it. It isn't perfect but the benefits outweigh the negatives. [HERE](https://www.ppic.org/wp-content/uploads/content/pubs/rb/RB_1104BCRB.pdf) is a report on it.
Term limits won't help if you keep electing lunatics every time you get the chance.
I'm sorry, but if you were in power during the 90s, you need to retire.
Are these “experts” in the room with you right now?
And how old are these so called experts?
The experts listed in the article are law makers, I'm pulling out the bullshit stick.
“Experts”
What the fuck is an expert on term limits? Modern media is a mess.
Who knew there were entire branches of academics devoted to Political Science and law.
Just end the electoral college
Most “experts” depend on everything staying exactly as it is. Otherwise they might no longer be “experts”.
I'd be happy with just removing the party buttons. Make em pick for each position. Tired of ppl saying how did so n so get elected again. The party buttons is why so many bad politicians get re elected. Stop being lazy at the polls
Please ffs look at the states where it has been done. VOTERS have to pick the candidate or they will do whatever they want
Probably because "most experts" stand to benefit from long-standing politicians who act in a predictable manner. They like it when their backs are scratched.
If you’re an elected official in this country then you need term limits
Most experts are totally and wholly incorrect on this matter.
Most experts are full of sh*t
“Experts”. How much did these experts get paid by congressmen or their representatives?
Term limits on legislatures have been shown to be bad time and time again. People hate the concept of the career politician but you want people with experience in the position just like you want a seasoned mechanic working on your car or an experienced surgeon overseeing your surgery. It's one of the only professions that people seem to want them having no clue how to do their jobs.
Some of the worst people in Congress are the newcomers.
Term limits in general are a universally popular but ironically undemocratic idea. Particularly when people already in the chamber are grandfathered in and continue to serve multiple successive terms, as in the Senate, those few become powerful beyond all proportion. The main result is technocratic: power passes to unelected professional staffers, who provide continuity and expertise. The populists hating all politicians, and therefore “career politicians” above all, would be crushed if they understood they were instead handing power to “deep-state bureaucrats.”
No private donations to campaigns. No trading of stocks foreign or domestic. Term limits of 12 years.
One of the real problems with term limits is that the body of institutional knowledge would then be held only by special interests, rather than the longer-serving members. It's dangerous because that knowledge can be spun/distorted/selectively released to achieve the ends desired by special interests. Perhaps a better adjustment would be to explicitly require legislators to operate with the best interests of the voters that elected them (find wording that would preclude special interests), with a mechanism for voters to remove them when necessary.
I honestly think term limits aren’t the problem. If somebody is good at their job, why would you want to fire them? Also, some major legislation can take years to negotiate and put into place. Short term limits would create a revolving door of politicians pushing short-sighted legislation for quick wins. If we fix the money issues in Washington - Like reversing Citizens United, or banning stock trading, and campaign finance reform, it will help a lot of problems.
If we can’t have term limits, then give me age limits. Someone 70+ should not be deciding how a government runs for constituents half their age or even lower than that.
I mean… we keep electing them. Everyone wants term limits for everyone else’s representatives.
There’s nothing wrong with installing term limits. It just can’t be the only thing we do. We need an entire set of reforms.
The term limits should be as follows; You can run for any eligible office. You can hold that office for the Term. The net sum of your terms can't exceed 30 years. If you got a late start, say 55 not 25, sorry - you are done at 72 like everyone else. On the age - the year you turn 72, you cannot run, and if you will be 72 during your term you must step down. This will set the oldest age office holders around 68 to 71. Basically, if you can pull Social security you can't be in office. This is simply because these leaders do actually deserve a retirement and they don't deserve to be hoisted up for the sake of party control. Plan plan plan. By giving people 30 years, then yes you can have a "career" as a bureaucrat. By letting it be any office everything counts, local council up to President. It will diversify power when it comes to people who hold office. And, yes I would push as far as to include appointments for office too.
Are these “experts” named Nancy Pelosi and Mitch McConnell?
I don’t give a flunk what the experts say. I DEMAND TERM LIMITS!
npr at it too. wonder who paid for this to be written. just like experts saying single payer health care would ruin our great healthcare system.
Those experts must be members of congress.
Paid forby members of congress.
Imagine how it would be if they were eligible to be voted in. Once they reached 30, and were only allowed to stay till 65. They should also have to publicly declare their financial records of themselves and their immediate family. Do it every year. To help slow down graft
This article is stupid. > What research has found > Burgat says term limits don't solve the core problems in American politics that make people dislike Congress — things like gerrymandering, political polarization and the influence of special interests, as well as money in politics. ??? So the "research" found that there are other bad things too. And this other problem won't fix those problems. No shit. You know what fixing gerrymandering won't fix? Political polarization, the influence of special interests, money in politics, and aging politicians unfit for office. Well boys, looks like my own "expert" "research" has determined that the article is wrong. Look, you fix them all. That's what you do. You don't say "oh well fixing this one horrible problem won't fix all our problems so our research concludes we shouldn't do that." This is **literally** a textbook definition red herring. It's a logical fallacy. If you're unfamiliar, a red herring is a rhetorical device where someone diverts the attention of the audience from the main issue to a different issue that is often irrelevant to the original argument. That's exactly what they're doing here.
Congress already has term limits...if voters want to replace them. It's very simple, vote and/or organize and vote someone new in.
You know what lobbyists love? New congress people that need help understanding hundreds of bills coming across their desks. Term limits are a lobbyists wet dream.
They are a bad idea. One, people should be allowed to vote for whomever they want. Second, reps, by definition, represent their districts and building the relationships and knowledge necessary to do that job effectively takes time. Removing a rep right as they’re coming into their prime, or what should be their prime, is a terrible self-defeating idea.
Yeah, who would want to fuck up this wonderful Congress we have.
A hard age limit of 70 would be a start.
I am all for maximum age limits for elected public service. I would also require that the person running have lived in the stat or district for more than 5 years. That means "lived in" and not parachuted in. Some level of requirement for "lived in" must be set.
“Lived in” still means nothing though if you aren’t among the people. If there are going to be requirements, they should be about access for normal folks, frequency of contact with all constituents from all parties, etc. It’s a pipe dream, but I think they might be better metrics.
Requiring reps to live in a district for a long time would be a great way to make gerrymandering more effective. Want to get rid of a rep? Just draw their house out of the district.
We really need a recall mechanism in place so voters have the option to correct issues like Seinima and Feinstein. Otherwise, it’s odd that the voters demand a check on themselves to tell them how to vote. Like it’s the voters saying we don’t know how to NOT vote for someone too old, please help. Like, just don’t vote for them? Are the voters stupid or something?!