7 ms·

I often wonder how many problems would be fixed by adding a 2 term limit to the House and Senate.

virtuabhi 8y ago
None.
et2o 8y ago
Would just shift even more power to the parties, since you'd need to toe the line even more than present to get re-elected.
thatjsguy 8y ago
We did this in Michigan. It doesn’t work. It’s an attractive platform item, but what ends up happening is lots of turnover means it’s easier for lobbyists to sway candidates. You also just lose institutional knowledge. And guess what? We have term limits and an entirely new governor still poisoned an entire town full of kids. Term limits don’t work.
- pwned1 8y ago
  I'm from Michigan. I think they've worked well.
  - thatjsguy 8y ago
    The electorate will do what it wants. If people keep electing terrible reps, term limits don’t stop that, it just stops that one particular bad rep and replaces them with another. Similarly, we have some awesome Michigan House members who would be fantastic again, but they’re term-limited and have to run for something else to continue to serve. It’s sad.
    - TangoTrotFox 8y ago
      I think there's a strong argument that many representatives don't necessarily start awful, but are driven to awfulness in the pursuit of keeping themselves in office. Like you allude to, most voters are grossly misinformed or vote irrationally. And this irrationality and misinformation is very effectively exploited by special interests and monied groups. Consequently the desires of these special interests and monied groups start to become more important than the interests of society when a politician is primarily concerned about staying in office.
- walshemj 8y ago
  Totally right even more so if you have some one coming outside who doesn't have a clue how the systems work.
walshemj 8y ago
Not that many (from experience on parliamentary based bodies) it probably takes a couple of years or one full election cycle to know how the system works so you will continually have a poorly trained set of senators/congressmen. Having a max age limit make more sense or remove the seniority rules used to appoint key committee chairs. They key thing would be strict maximum $ limits for elections and give candidates free time on the tv networks.
woodruffw 8y ago
Probably not many -- Congress benefits immensely from the massive institutional knowledge of its older members, and corruption probably doesn't correlate all that closely with age anyways (my recollection is that the congresspeople caught in recent scandals have all been relatively young). In setting a fixed term limit, we would risk weakening the check that the legislative represents against the executive.
ejstronge 8y ago
I suspect that very few would be solved - new congresspeople would likely depend more on senior staff to understand complex issues. It’s possible we’d end up with a series of unelected experts who direct policy for relatively inexperienced congress members.
h4b4n3r0 8y ago
I'm not sure any problems would be fixed. The way things are now, politicians in the house/senate have to always worry about re-election, and at least create visibility of catering to their electoral base in the run-up to that. If their second term did not have the possibility of re-election, they'd just do what the lobbyists want them to 100% of the time (as opposed to 90%) in exchange for a job after their second term ends.
jogjayr 8y ago
How productive would you be at your current job if you were told you'll be forced out in 6 months, no matter how happy your stakeholders are with your work?
Delmania 8y ago
None; absolutely none. Term limits are a terrible idea because to gain experience with politics and credibility within the establishment requires years. Institute term limits lobbyists gain all the power as they are the only ones who have the clout to get legislation passed. You'd need to institute campaign finance reform and ban lobbyists before you could start terms limits. But these are just both band aids on America's problems. We are infested with a religion that denies science and education, and we have a political party controlled by 3 families that feel entitled to as much as they can have at the expense of the entire nation. We would need to limit the power of money in politics and reform public education to raise a generation that can see the right for what it is.
- batteryhorse 8y ago
  I can't express how wrong this response is. Term limits are necessary, there should be no such thing as a "career politician". A politician should be required to have actual skills, and not just a nice smile. Experience with politics is meaningless, there should be NO establishment. It is always the new guy who reveals the truth to the people, which is a good thing. Experience only results in being able to lie to the public, to further the establishment. Otherwise it becomes us vs them. People will do anything to maintain power. It should be one year and out, nobody should be able to get rich by becoming a politician. A good first step would be to get rid of Diane Feinstein.
  - zhdc1 8y ago
    I can't tell if you're being sarcastic or not. The highest level of government is the worst place I can think of to have a cadre of amateurs running the show.
    - ur-whale 8y ago
      You are correct in that they are certainly not amateurs. Where you err deeply is if you believe their skillset is about running the country. It's not. It's about getting re-elected and trafficking influence.
  - 8y ago
75dvtwin 8y ago
I think it would solve a lot of problems. My main expectation, is the dramatic reduction of influence by lobbyists. Which in turn, should produce a model where lobbyist would work on influencing the actual voters. So they may not spend less money, but it will go on influencing the electorate itself. The language, methods and areas of influence will change as well -- and that's what I would like. I realize, that at least in some analysis, this did not happen in Michigan. (just reduction of lobbyist spending was 13%, but politicians with less experience consulted with them more -- See page 19 of [1] ). However, I think the number of years in service, plus preliminary background requirements for staff members, plus other adjustments, still need to be made for a proper term-limit system. Fundamentally, I believe, there are no small (defined as less than 1000), humans that should be permanently place in the position of distributing tax dollars, or military control. These two things will produce corruption no matter how 'intellectually clean' a person is, entering the position. US, UK and other countries claiming to be the 'moral compasses' for the world to follow, need to figure out how to switch from the class of politicians to the 'statesman' . Whereas, I see a politician as somebody who makes is their job/career, vs statesman -- who view their work as a poorly (or insignificantly) compensated service for 8-12 years. [1] http://www.msae.org/Portals/0/PDF/Term%20Limits%20White%20Paper%20FINAL%201.8.16.pdf http://www.msae.org/Portals/0/PDF/Term%20Limits%20White%20Pa...
jfoutz 8y ago
I often wonder how many problems could have been avoided if we required 2/3 majority. Byzantine generals have to work together.
- cozicoolmail 8y ago
  That is the case for some legislation, such as when is necessary to override a presidential veto. Requiring it for all legislation would pretty much lead to a standstill, or worse - peddling to the special interests of a small coalition (this is my opinion).
  - jfoutz 8y ago
    Yeah, maybe. I think it would be super corrosive to party politics. Cooperation is mandatory. It's just not possible to pass anything without reaching across the aisle. I'd assert that things that need to change would have broad support, and that change would happen. Stuff without broad support, well, maybe that's not as important as we think it is. i mean, sure. the American reinvestment act wouldn't have passed - and a bunch of the other stimulus packages. Of course, glass steagall wouldn't have been repealed in the first place. I think if you want anything to be resistant to byzantine failure, it's making laws. shrug. They didn't ask me.
- dragonwriter 8y ago
  > I often wonder how many problems could have been avoided if we required 2/3 majority. California used, until recently, to have such a supermajority requirement for the budget—not all legislation, just the one piece of legislation that is an annual must-pass. It was the primary source of perennial budget crisis, and, it let a unified minority party that held it's unity (usually Republicans, because they usually were in the minority and almost always more unified in the state than Democrats) to dictate terms so long as they were more willing than the majority to hold the state hostage. Plus, conversely, it also makes the majority party less accountable, because they can always blame the intransigence of the minority and the disastrous consequences of not reaching some deal for the actual contents of whatever deal is reached. A supermajority doesn't mean everyone owns the results, it means no one does.
rbankston 8y ago
Might want to look at how that has worked at the state level. The state of Michigan has this and it has only exacerbated issues held in check because people had incentives to help people and get re-elected. Michigan now squarely gets its policies from lobbyists and special interest groups because at the end of their terms that is who will hire them. Term limits do exist and are called elections. Every single election is a chance to vote someone out of office who hasn't done a good job. The thing that has essentially broken elections as term limits is partisan gerrymandering.
- greedo 8y ago
  Incumbents have such a huge advantage, that in most elections, the chance of them winning is +90%.
eecc 8y ago
Before getting there, you should first ensure you have a strong supply of educated and competent replacements. To maximize this, you should have free public education for all. Secondly, you’d also want to level the field wrt to visibility: money, lobbying, campaign contributions. Just ban it all. Term limits is the last of your problems
dragonwriter 8y ago
> I often wonder how many problems would be fixed by adding a 2 term limit to the House and Senate. The only “problem” solved would be that of occasionally having people that are even nominally accountable to the electorate who have the experience and skills in the system and the personal powerbase to standup to the permanent class of lobbyists and other unaccountable, interested experts.
specialist 8y ago
Every rule change has winners and losers. If you kneecap politicians, which are somewhat more accountable to us voters, you empower administrators and lobbyists. If you want more accountability, empower politicians, so they aren't so beholden to monied interests. Public financing of campaigns, for starters. Increase their staffing, so they can manage the work load. Etc.
qubax 8y ago
The problem really isn't term limits. It's the cost of elections. If we set 2 term limits, it would just mean that the corporate elite would just buy a new politician every 2 terms rather than buying a politician for 6 or more terms. If you wanted to run for a political office. You'd need money. So who has money? And now you are beholden to the wealthy. It's amazing when you think about it. We can no longer ever have a populist or independent president or congressman really. Because of the money needed to run for office.

None.

et2o 8y ago

Would just shift even more power to the parties, since you'd need to toe the line even more than present to get re-elected.

thatjsguy 8y ago

We did this in Michigan. It doesn’t work. It’s an attractive platform item, but what ends up happening is lots of turnover means it’s easier for lobbyists to sway candidates. You also just lose institutional knowledge. And guess what? We have term limits and an entirely new governor still poisoned an entire town full of kids. Term limits don’t work.

pwned1 8y ago
I'm from Michigan. I think they've worked well.
- thatjsguy 8y ago
  The electorate will do what it wants. If people keep electing terrible reps, term limits don’t stop that, it just stops that one particular bad rep and replaces them with another. Similarly, we have some awesome Michigan House members who would be fantastic again, but they’re term-limited and have to run for something else to continue to serve. It’s sad.
  - TangoTrotFox 8y ago
    I think there's a strong argument that many representatives don't necessarily start awful, but are driven to awfulness in the pursuit of keeping themselves in office. Like you allude to, most voters are grossly misinformed or vote irrationally. And this irrationality and misinformation is very effectively exploited by special interests and monied groups. Consequently the desires of these special interests and monied groups start to become more important than the interests of society when a politician is primarily concerned about staying in office.
walshemj 8y ago
Totally right even more so if you have some one coming outside who doesn't have a clue how the systems work.

walshemj 8y ago

Not that many (from experience on parliamentary based bodies) it probably takes a couple of years or one full election cycle to know how the system works so you will continually have a poorly trained set of senators/congressmen. Having a max age limit make more sense or remove the seniority rules used to appoint key committee chairs. They key thing would be strict maximum $ limits for elections and give candidates free time on the tv networks.

woodruffw 8y ago

Probably not many -- Congress benefits immensely from the massive institutional knowledge of its older members, and corruption probably doesn't correlate all that closely with age anyways (my recollection is that the congresspeople caught in recent scandals have all been relatively young). In setting a fixed term limit, we would risk weakening the check that the legislative represents against the executive.

ejstronge 8y ago

I suspect that very few would be solved - new congresspeople would likely depend more on senior staff to understand complex issues. It’s possible we’d end up with a series of unelected experts who direct policy for relatively inexperienced congress members.

h4b4n3r0 8y ago

I'm not sure any problems would be fixed. The way things are now, politicians in the house/senate have to always worry about re-election, and at least create visibility of catering to their electoral base in the run-up to that. If their second term did not have the possibility of re-election, they'd just do what the lobbyists want them to 100% of the time (as opposed to 90%) in exchange for a job after their second term ends.

jogjayr 8y ago

How productive would you be at your current job if you were told you'll be forced out in 6 months, no matter how happy your stakeholders are with your work?

Delmania 8y ago

None; absolutely none. Term limits are a terrible idea because to gain experience with politics and credibility within the establishment requires years. Institute term limits lobbyists gain all the power as they are the only ones who have the clout to get legislation passed. You'd need to institute campaign finance reform and ban lobbyists before you could start terms limits. But these are just both band aids on America's problems. We are infested with a religion that denies science and education, and we have a political party controlled by 3 families that feel entitled to as much as they can have at the expense of the entire nation. We would need to limit the power of money in politics and reform public education to raise a generation that can see the right for what it is.

batteryhorse 8y ago
I can't express how wrong this response is. Term limits are necessary, there should be no such thing as a "career politician". A politician should be required to have actual skills, and not just a nice smile. Experience with politics is meaningless, there should be NO establishment. It is always the new guy who reveals the truth to the people, which is a good thing. Experience only results in being able to lie to the public, to further the establishment. Otherwise it becomes us vs them. People will do anything to maintain power. It should be one year and out, nobody should be able to get rich by becoming a politician. A good first step would be to get rid of Diane Feinstein.
- zhdc1 8y ago
  I can't tell if you're being sarcastic or not. The highest level of government is the worst place I can think of to have a cadre of amateurs running the show.
  - ur-whale 8y ago
    You are correct in that they are certainly not amateurs. Where you err deeply is if you believe their skillset is about running the country. It's not. It's about getting re-elected and trafficking influence.
- 8y ago

75dvtwin 8y ago

I think it would solve a lot of problems. My main expectation, is the dramatic reduction of influence by lobbyists. Which in turn, should produce a model where lobbyist would work on influencing the actual voters. So they may not spend less money, but it will go on influencing the electorate itself. The language, methods and areas of influence will change as well -- and that's what I would like. I realize, that at least in some analysis, this did not happen in Michigan. (just reduction of lobbyist spending was 13%, but politicians with less experience consulted with them more -- See page 19 of [1] ). However, I think the number of years in service, plus preliminary background requirements for staff members, plus other adjustments, still need to be made for a proper term-limit system. Fundamentally, I believe, there are no small (defined as less than 1000), humans that should be permanently place in the position of distributing tax dollars, or military control. These two things will produce corruption no matter how 'intellectually clean' a person is, entering the position. US, UK and other countries claiming to be the 'moral compasses' for the world to follow, need to figure out how to switch from the class of politicians to the 'statesman' . Whereas, I see a politician as somebody who makes is their job/career, vs statesman -- who view their work as a poorly (or insignificantly) compensated service for 8-12 years. [1] http://www.msae.org/Portals/0/PDF/Term%20Limits%20White%20Paper%20FINAL%201.8.16.pdf http://www.msae.org/Portals/0/PDF/Term%20Limits%20White%20Pa...

jfoutz 8y ago

I often wonder how many problems could have been avoided if we required 2/3 majority. Byzantine generals have to work together.

cozicoolmail 8y ago
That is the case for some legislation, such as when is necessary to override a presidential veto. Requiring it for all legislation would pretty much lead to a standstill, or worse - peddling to the special interests of a small coalition (this is my opinion).
- jfoutz 8y ago
  Yeah, maybe. I think it would be super corrosive to party politics. Cooperation is mandatory. It's just not possible to pass anything without reaching across the aisle. I'd assert that things that need to change would have broad support, and that change would happen. Stuff without broad support, well, maybe that's not as important as we think it is. i mean, sure. the American reinvestment act wouldn't have passed - and a bunch of the other stimulus packages. Of course, glass steagall wouldn't have been repealed in the first place. I think if you want anything to be resistant to byzantine failure, it's making laws. shrug. They didn't ask me.
dragonwriter 8y ago
> I often wonder how many problems could have been avoided if we required 2/3 majority. California used, until recently, to have such a supermajority requirement for the budget—not all legislation, just the one piece of legislation that is an annual must-pass. It was the primary source of perennial budget crisis, and, it let a unified minority party that held it's unity (usually Republicans, because they usually were in the minority and almost always more unified in the state than Democrats) to dictate terms so long as they were more willing than the majority to hold the state hostage. Plus, conversely, it also makes the majority party less accountable, because they can always blame the intransigence of the minority and the disastrous consequences of not reaching some deal for the actual contents of whatever deal is reached. A supermajority doesn't mean everyone owns the results, it means no one does.

rbankston 8y ago

Might want to look at how that has worked at the state level. The state of Michigan has this and it has only exacerbated issues held in check because people had incentives to help people and get re-elected. Michigan now squarely gets its policies from lobbyists and special interest groups because at the end of their terms that is who will hire them. Term limits do exist and are called elections. Every single election is a chance to vote someone out of office who hasn't done a good job. The thing that has essentially broken elections as term limits is partisan gerrymandering.

greedo 8y ago
Incumbents have such a huge advantage, that in most elections, the chance of them winning is +90%.

eecc 8y ago

Before getting there, you should first ensure you have a strong supply of educated and competent replacements. To maximize this, you should have free public education for all. Secondly, you’d also want to level the field wrt to visibility: money, lobbying, campaign contributions. Just ban it all. Term limits is the last of your problems

dragonwriter 8y ago

> I often wonder how many problems would be fixed by adding a 2 term limit to the House and Senate. The only “problem” solved would be that of occasionally having people that are even nominally accountable to the electorate who have the experience and skills in the system and the personal powerbase to standup to the permanent class of lobbyists and other unaccountable, interested experts.

specialist 8y ago

Every rule change has winners and losers. If you kneecap politicians, which are somewhat more accountable to us voters, you empower administrators and lobbyists. If you want more accountability, empower politicians, so they aren't so beholden to monied interests. Public financing of campaigns, for starters. Increase their staffing, so they can manage the work load. Etc.

qubax 8y ago

The problem really isn't term limits. It's the cost of elections. If we set 2 term limits, it would just mean that the corporate elite would just buy a new politician every 2 terms rather than buying a politician for 6 or more terms. If you wanted to run for a political office. You'd need money. So who has money? And now you are beholden to the wealthy. It's amazing when you think about it. We can no longer ever have a populist or independent president or congressman really. Because of the money needed to run for office.