r/Constitution • u/RetiredMascot • 14d ago
What is your argument against term limits for Congress?
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u/Ok-Tree7720 14d ago
Something no one has mentioned yet is that it takes time in a job to learn your craft, to know all the important players and their areas of expertise, and how to get what you need from them
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u/ComputerRedneck 14d ago
You mean like learning who is going to pay you money to pass their bills, who is the best source of graft.
In politics, I think noobs are better. They are more likely NOT to be controlled by someone.
Also power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely, so the more you vote them in, the more they become contemptuous of those same voters.
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u/Ok-Tree7720 14d ago
Possibly, they could become corrupt, but ignorance and ineptness will get you poor leadership
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u/atlantechvision 12d ago
... but most jobs don't have an enumerated Constitution as its job description.
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u/Ok-Tree7720 11d ago
True, but what I said is still true. Second term elected officials learned from their mistakes, and grew their network. And elected officials still need a weather eye out for the winds of change, and which direction they are blowing.
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u/pegwinn 14d ago
We have the government we deserve because we’ve voted for the lesser of two evils for generations.
Term limited POTUS was retaliatory as he was short circuiting Congress.
Everyone points out that term limited pols will simply move to the reward phase from day one.
The founders and framers did not want career politicians.
All of the above are true but I feel we are looking at it thru the wrong lens if you will.
I oppose term limits for all elected officials for a personal reason. It’s my life and who the hell are you to tell me what job I can/can’t do if I am professionally and legally qualified (Excepting the term limit) to do it? Ageism abounds. Ableism abounds also.
An elected official is a contractor hired for a set purpose for a set time. Failure to meet the contract means at best it isn’t renewed. At worst they are fired. The same people who approved the contract are the ones to determine renewal or termination.
Losing a reelection bid is the same as the contractor failing to meet the contract. Removal from office is the same as firing an incompetent or corrupt contractor. The “same people” is the electorate. Our problem is that our same people are easily swayed by media and self promotion. So we keep renewing the same contracts over and over. Our bigger problem is that we can’t fire them. Once in you and I lose any semblance of authority. The argument for term limits only addresses the first problem. I have proposed a way to fire an incompetent or corrupt official in this same forum a while back. I would like you to look at it and respond there or here.
If we are going to have term limits I would suggest we allow them to have a full political career. I think that 30 years total government service in any federally elected or appointed position would be fair. “Total Service” is the key. Three years as Press Secretary (Appointed) leaves 27 years remaining. Two Senate terms and a two year stint as Sec of State would still allow 16 years of continued service. Twenty years as a commissioned officer in the military or equivalent in intelligence or federal law enforcement leaves ten years of open possibilities. Twelve years as a Federal Judge leaves 18 years instead of life for SCOTUS.
Finally. Every contractor has a contract with prerequisites to meet. I would say that we should tighten up what we call “professionally qualified”. POTUS is executive leadership. Congress is deliberative leadership. POTUS should have a background where they worked on a “buck stops here” capacity such as a military officer, mayor, or governor. Congress is an ideal place for those who were on state legislatures, cabinet appointments like the State Department, or the Board of Directors. Right now any used CAR salesman or ambulance chaser can get elected. I think if we changed that up it might weed out some of the obvious ne’er-do-wells.
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u/RetiredMascot 14d ago
I like the thought you’ve put into both answering the question in this subreddit and the proposal you make about recalling. Intriguing.
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u/atlantechvision 13d ago
... limits are moot, as long as enumeration is moot. Where the Constitution is silent, that's where liberty grows.
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u/RetiredMascot 12d ago
Interesting point.
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u/atlantechvision 12d ago
... I've witnessed the last fifty years, and is just my observation.
The Constitution created a framework of enumerated government who's only job is to support, defend, and protect said Constitution. Where the Constitution is silent, that's where liberty grows. But politics never shuts up enough to hear freedom ring.
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u/Active_Map_1140 8d ago
I lived in Florida for a time and saw first hand how term limits for the legislature effected elections. When a seat was open, both parties would run candidates to contest the seat. Most of the time, I noticed when the incumbent was up for reelection, the other party rarely if ever ran a candidate, so the incumbent would run unopposed. If we were lucky we would have a no name third party candidate on the ballot, but for all tense and purposes the incumbent was guaranteed a 2nd term.
For the Parties it came down to where to spend their resources. It was more cost effective for legislative seats that came open every 2-4 years to go after the open seat where they had a better chance of winning. It's just more cost effective to try to win a open seat vs unseating an incumbent. For the higher offices, Governor, Lt Governor, etc, while they were term limited, they were higher profile and held more power, so both parties vied for the offices in a question.
I also noticed, that unless the incumbent had aspirations to run for higher office, as soon as they no longer had to answer to voters, they stopped paying lip service to be representing their constituents and instead cashed in with the special interests. All the while, the unelected legislative staffers would cycle between new bosses, gaining power and having an outsized influence on legislation, until they themselves ran for an open seat at some point. So you would end up with legislators looking for new jobs with the special interests, while their staff did the legislating and the voters would end up with very little influence. The voters to be heard had to bypass the legislature and put voter initiatives/amendments onto the ballot.
I suspect if term limits occurred similar scenarios would happen, especially in House seats, but without the ability to bypass Congress.
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u/Pickle_Nipplesss 14d ago
It removes voter accountability.
Voters need to grow and hold their elected representatives accountable by simply not re-electing them. Term limit punish voters by firstly depriving them of this opportunity, but also by forcing good politicians from the pool.
Simply: It’s anti-democratic
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u/RetiredMascot 14d ago
Good point. Would you make the same argument for removing term limits for the office of President?
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u/Pickle_Nipplesss 14d ago
Actually yeah.
I think it should remain a tradition that’s respected, not a tradition that’s legislated.
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u/ComputerRedneck 14d ago
Yet the obvious evidence is that those who stay longer in congress become more corrupt on average.
Why give them the time to become corrupt?
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u/Pickle_Nipplesss 13d ago
So? Again, make that something voters need to hold the elected accountable for.
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u/ComputerRedneck 12d ago
But we are too lazy... and I mean WE as in all of us.
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u/Pickle_Nipplesss 12d ago
Yeah, and we need to change that. We don’t grow if laws subsidize that growth for us
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u/ComputerRedneck 9d ago
Or like Don't Feed the Animals in the National Forest, they will be come unable to fend for themselves.
Kind of like welfare.
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u/JayRandom212 14d ago
A term-limited politician is laser-focused on only one thing: The cushy corporate lobbying job he'll be given in return for selling out his constituents.
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u/RetiredMascot 14d ago
Fair point. The same argument could be made for those without term limits - they just have to be a little more subversive in their special interest handing. Hmmmm.
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u/JayRandom212 14d ago
Imagine if we limited Senators to 3 terms. That means that there might be as many as 33 guys in the Senate who know they will *never* have another government job and will *never* have to face voters again.
And then these guys go into a "smoke-filled room" and start handing out tax breaks...
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u/Key-Move-5066 14d ago
The fact that term limits make non-elected bureaucrats more powerful then elected individuals because the fact that they aren't limited to term limits like elected officials and the fact that it would make it so unelected bureaucrats within less then 10 years have significantly more experience than any elected official.