believe in Democracy: no Term limits
- Thread starter evince
- Start date
We already have term limits---they are called elections. Those state legislatures that imposed term limits shifted more power to staff and interest groups that had more experience. We want our dentist, plumber, surgeon, teachers, and everyone else to have experience except our politicians.
Well, you finally said something that made sense or I would have agreed with you more often.
And I am not a con.
Term limits are probably the most misguided urge of many citizens. All they really do is to reduce the power of the people.
They SOUND like they force out 'career politicians' and give the people an advantage, and that's not an entirely false point, only mostly - what they mostly do is to prevent legislators from becoming especially skilled, including at serving the people, and instead give the interests who can recruit, fund and market 'new' candidates who are strangers to voters a big advantage to select who can win.
The advantages of incumbency are two-sided - some are pro-voter and some are not - but on balance it's just one more way to weaken the people and give power to the interests.
People need to instead address the problem of how much advantage any candidate has who has backing from the powerful interests, in terms of money and media. And OPPOSE term limits to keep the good long-term officials who can use their being well-known to win instead of needing the interests to back them.
They SOUND like they force out 'career politicians' and give the people an advantage, and that's not an entirely false point, only mostly - what they mostly do is to prevent legislators from becoming especially skilled, including at serving the people, and instead give the interests who can recruit, fund and market 'new' candidates who are strangers to voters a big advantage to select who can win.
The advantages of incumbency are two-sided - some are pro-voter and some are not - but on balance it's just one more way to weaken the people and give power to the interests.
People need to instead address the problem of how much advantage any candidate has who has backing from the powerful interests, in terms of money and media. And OPPOSE term limits to keep the good long-term officials who can use their being well-known to win instead of needing the interests to back them.
SmarterthanYou
rebel
unless it's a choice to own certain firearms
I seldom see members of Congress who replace others who are different than the one they replaced. That is not a criticism of those officials, only saying those in a certain position are limited by the constraints and realities of the office and mostly behave similarly.
Advocates often suggest 2 term limits for U. S. Senators (12 years). Currently, the average number of years served by senators is 10.2 years--less than the 2 term limit. Advocates suggest 4 terms for House members (8 years) and the current average is about 9.1 years---slightly more than the recommended 4 terms. Those averages would be even less if we didn't have a few with 30-40 years. So, turnover in Congress is about the same as it would be with term limits.
The people can already negate any backing by powerful interests by simply voting their choice. The biggest advantage goes to incumbent regardless of level of financial support. Groups usually give their support to incumbents because they are likely to win.
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yeah, that is what this thread is about.
The ones who serve a long time tend to be the most skilled, and we'd lose that. The people CAN in theory vote out candidates backed by powerful interests, but in practice they rarely do - the backing is almost a requirement to win, moresp with term limits.
Maybe they vote for the person they favor and powerful interests back those same candidates. If a candidate is likely to win the election it is counter-productive to give to their opponent. Many groups are powerful because they have many members who vote. The AARP does not give contributions and the NRA gives very little in campaign contributions; yet, they are both powerful because of the large number of members. Those voters would be as powerful if neither the AARP or NRA existed and the number of voters far outnumbers the membership of those organizations. There are 62 million Social Security recipients but only 39 million AARP members. There are 90 million gun owners but only 5 million NRA members.
No, that's ridiculous. The point of 'powerful interests' referring to small numbers of wealthy people and corporations is that they want candidates who are at odds with the public interests on issues that benefit them, and electing them isn't 'counter-productive'.
This is a simplistic view of American politics. "Powerful interests" do not refer to a small number of wealthy people and corporations that want candidates at odds with the public interest. Powerful interests include mass membership organizations like AARP, NRA, unions, environmental groups, education groups, etc.
Whether they are at odds with the public interest depends on what you believe the public interest is--and there are large powerful interests on both sides. Based on your previous posts my guess is that your view of public interest means liberal policies. Using that assumption, many corporations have pushed against state legislation that would allow discrimination against gays and they have been successful by threatening boycotts against those states. Many corporations fought U. S. withdrawal from the Paris climate agreement. There are many other examples where corporations or other interests pushed liberal policies. Compare the campaign contributions of business, industry, and financial firms--they overwhelmingly backed Hillary against Trump in 2016.
The point is that we are all special interests and millions of citizens who give $20 to an organization or candidate is as powerful as any other groups because they have both money and votes. Legislators react more to vote power than money because the point of money is to sway votes. Most Americans vote party and money does little to affect their votes unless you believe money persuaded you to vote for your chosen candidates. And nobody I ever talk to admits their vote was swayed by money.
Those powerful interests did not prevent any of the current liberal policies you favor and probably pushed for most of them.
After the first bit of your post I can see there's no point reading the rest, we're on different planets, you might as well be saying that money has no power in politics for all we agree.
We are not on different planets. Your interpretation is based on liberal partisan views of how politics works. My view is based on political science literature. Mine is less exciting than a conspiratorial evil rich people and corporations versus the "little people" but it based more on research and studies of how decisions are actually made.
NiftyNiblick
1960s Chick Magnet
I would agree that elections are the best way to limit terms.
The presidential term limit amendment damaged the republic.
The presidential term limit amendment damaged the republic.
Good post; but here is something congressional term limits would do....eliminate the professional politicians who promise people something in order to get elected.
Our founders never imagined the permanent Congress person. They saw them as a part time legislature who then would go back to their states and work with the people. Today, we have a political class that has created the massive bureaucracy we have today. There is no way to end this never ending desire to dip into people's pockets and turn constituents into a dependent class. One party in particular comes to mind.
The Democratic Party needs dependency in order to preserve its power which is based on the belief that people are too stupid to take care of themselves and need this massive bureaucratic maize to keep them alive. Without victims of every imaginable hurt, there would be no Democratic Party.
So yes, term limits on Congress would be a good idea. House members can serve four, Senators three. I think 16 years and 18 years are more than enough time for them.
Be specific; what is this skill they have?