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> California didn't help itself when it implemented term limits which had the unpleasant side effect of never having any legislators with enough experience in t

> California didn't help itself when it implemented term limits which had the unpleasant side effect of never having any legislators with enough experience in the job to know how to really get things done. I've never understood this argument. Potential "yay" and "nay" votes are both term-limited, so the "inexperience" should cancel out? The fear of rocking the boat effects anyone that, well, will live longer. Whether you are looking for continued perks/bribes in office, a cushy lobbying job after, or simply don't want to make enemies before your political next move, the perverse incentives are still there. Perhaps a better thing to do would be to let the populace force votes on a daily basis (with queuing / anti DOS measures, of course), so the representatives have to go on the record one way or another, and can't hide behind inaction.

beambot 6y ago
Yay & Nay votes aren't the only job of legislators. They're often responsible for writing good legislation too -- something that's arguably difficult to do if you're new to the job, so the task (largely) falls back to special interests to "help" with the process. By way of example: Literature. It's easy to read a good book; it's much harder to write one without lots & lots of practice.
- Ericson2314 6y ago
  Even when the outside interests don't write the legislation, it's the staff and not actually politicians that too: politicians are basically constantly in meetings / at events and have no time for such work. :| Nothing prevents the staff from being retained from when legislator to the next.
  - thebradbain 6y ago
    And that's partly how you end up with what many people would perceive as a "shadow government" -- obviously a group of people are writing the laws, and most likely they're experienced in doing so, but who _are_ they? And who are they accountable to? Kind of like the bureaucratic equivalent of external consultants coming into a private company.
    - matthewmacleod 6y ago
      You’ve just the Civil Service.
  - dmitriid 6y ago
    British series "Yes, Minister" / "Yes, Prime Minister" immediately come to mind.
  - dragonwriter 6y ago
    > Even when the outside interests don't write the legislation, it's the staff and not actually politicians that too: politicians are basically constantly in meetings / at events and have no time for such work. That's a little bit true but mostly misleading. As with any office with professional staff, most of the work of a legislative office is done by the staff, not the head of the office, true. OTOH, that doesn't mean the the skill, knowledge, and understanding of the head of the office is irrelevant, as the head directs the staff strategically, reviews, inquires, refines, and redirects work, etc. > Nothing prevents the staff from being retained from when legislator to the next. The new legislators not having the skill to select appropriate staff might, but a bigger problem isn't that the staff aren't retained but that they usually are; the less skilled the legislators are, the more the professional staff (who probably are shuttling back and forth between working for legislators and working for interest groups) do not only the detail work, but also control the agenda, and the less which faces the electorate sends to fill the nominally most important seats actually matter.
    - Ericson2314 6y ago
      That's a better argument, but also note that's it's a preventable mistake of legislatures not to rehire and therefore force the conflict of interest revolving door issue. Also note that this sort of negligence is happening today despite a lack of fedral congressional term limits: https://www.brookings.edu/blog/fixgov/2017/05/24/vital-stats-congress-has-a-staffing-problem-too/ https://www.brookings.edu/blog/fixgov/2017/05/24/vital-stats... . I can't find a source but I believe there is a similar issue with the per-congressperson researcher appropriations. So while perhaps less turnover helps make for stabler staffing jobs, it's not a cure-all. Ultimately the balance between Expertise and Democracy is a difficult one that we need to do a better job at (usually having not enough of both!) with or without term limits.
- whyenot 6y ago
  Many legislators come to the job with previous experience serving at the county or city level. Once they have are elected at the state level they can serve for up to 12 years. To me, that seems like a reasonable balance between giving them enough time to gain experience while not allowing them to stay in office forever and amass the power and corruption that led to the passage of term limits (proposition 140) in the first place.
  - ende 6y ago
    The academic literature is overwhelming support of the argument that legislative term limits have zero value. They only lead to inexperienced, ineffective legislators.
    - whyenot 6y ago
      It would be nice to have a citation or two from said academic literature.
      - karlp 6y ago
        https://www.brookings.edu/blog/fixgov/2018/01/18/five-reasons-to-oppose-congressional-term-limits/ https://www.brookings.edu/blog/fixgov/2018/01/18/five-reason...
        dmitriid 6y ago
        It's not academic literature, it's an op-ed piece. And every one of the 5 reasons can be challenged. Especially the "less choice" one.
        Ericson2314 6y ago
        I actually think the argument about committee chairing is a bit more credible than what's been said in this thread. Stability definitely can help nurture depth more than a parade of different positions.
d23 6y ago
> I've never understood this argument. Potential "yay" and "nay" votes are both term-limited, so the "inexperience" should cancel out? What? Take this to it's logical conclusion and imagine term limits of 1 day. No one would be making sound decisions with those yeas and nays. And why would they always be 50 / 50 and "cancel out"? If you know nothing about a fairly complex topic, it's easy to be mislead, especially by someone with an ulterior motive that's playing a game much longer than your term limits.
- Ericson2314 6y ago
  > Imagine term limits of 1 day. No one would be making sound decisions with those yeas and nays. I have no idea what terms limits of 1 day would do; it's not obvious to me. Please argue your point. > And why would they always be 50 / 50 and "cancel out"? I'm not talking about a vote split additive cancel out. I'm talking about how in `(termLimit * nFor) / (termLimit * nAgainst)` the `termLimit` factors cancel out. > If you know nothing about a fairly complex topic, it's easy to be mislead, especially by someone with an ulterior motive that's playing a game much longer than your term limits. Again you seem to be imagining legislators are dead at the end of the term and born at the beginning or something. They have plenty time to study the role before (c.f. the stereotypical centrist-psychopath politician planning from elementary school), and plenty of their career to be judged on their actions after. Don't get me wrong, there are plenty of factors that reinforce the status quo, but I still haven't heard a decent argument term limits aren't obviously among them one way or the other.
  - m12k 6y ago
    Not the person you are replying to, but I think the point they are trying to make is that the less experience a politician has, the more likely they are to believe what they are told by someone with an agenda who is trying to influence them, e.g. special interests. So the lack of experience doesn't cancel out for yea and nay when it comes to any given vote, because special interests will be lobbying mostly for one of the two, and thus the lack of experience (i.e. resistance to influence by having your own knowledge of the area) can tip the balance.
dragonwriter 6y ago
> I've never understood this argument. Potential "yay" and "nay" votes are both term-limited, so the "inexperience" should cancel out? Your analysis seems to think that legislation is just pushing "yay" or "nay" buttons, and that discussion of experience simply is about people having the skill to find the correct button. (Though inexperience there wouldn't cancel out, either, even with a 50/50 split in intended votes, it would lead to reduced predictability.) Legislators do more than push "yay" and "nay" buttons on packages that are assembled completely outside of their control, though.
- Ericson2314 6y ago
  I do think they do plenty more than "yay" or "nay", but the lack of courage among our legislatures is evidenced in both the California legislature and Congress, so I'm less inclined to think term limits is the relevant issue In California I think the huge dominance of the landowning class is more pertinent. Really, I want a non-FPTP parliamentary system. Politics should officially be a "team sport" as it is in practice, and should be a battle of ideologies not personalities. Coincidentally, these means (to me at least) that not having term limits is way less of potential problem, and so I would be against having them.
praestigiare 6y ago
That would be an accurate analysis if this was, for example, random noise in a system. But inexperience is not random, and cannot be said to "cancel out" in any meaningful way.
bregma 6y ago
> I've never understood this argument. Potential "yay" and "nay" votes are both term-limited, so the "inexperience" should cancel out? There are no term limits on C-level executives in deep-pocketed corporations and special interests. The term limits are on the legislators they buy. It's like a subscription model: you need to renew every few years to keep the gravy flowing.
- Ericson2314 6y ago
  This is the argument for term limits, BTW: Incumbuants are terrified of their next campaign (which is a every 2 years threat for representatives in the House, btw.) whereas more term limits means more brazen lame ducks. Then again, lame ducks need a job afterword so it's a bad augment too. My conclusions is that term limits seam mostly for show, with muddle benefits and disadvantages. Perhaps the real policy move is term limits + enough UBI that the lame ducks are truly safe no matter what. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sortition https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sortition is a neat idea which is like term limits but on steroids: you're as suddenly on the job as you are suddenly off it. I think this example, with the heightened stakes / wider Overton window, makes for the more interesting debate.
lazzlazzlazz 6y ago
Inexperience should "cancel out"? This mental model of how legislature is developed and then passed is probably the silliest I've ever heard. You should be more discerning of your thought processes.

beambot 6y ago

Yay & Nay votes aren't the only job of legislators. They're often responsible for writing good legislation too -- something that's arguably difficult to do if you're new to the job, so the task (largely) falls back to special interests to "help" with the process. By way of example: Literature. It's easy to read a good book; it's much harder to write one without lots & lots of practice.

Ericson2314 6y ago
Even when the outside interests don't write the legislation, it's the staff and not actually politicians that too: politicians are basically constantly in meetings / at events and have no time for such work. :| Nothing prevents the staff from being retained from when legislator to the next.
- thebradbain 6y ago
  And that's partly how you end up with what many people would perceive as a "shadow government" -- obviously a group of people are writing the laws, and most likely they're experienced in doing so, but who _are_ they? And who are they accountable to? Kind of like the bureaucratic equivalent of external consultants coming into a private company.
  - matthewmacleod 6y ago
    You’ve just the Civil Service.
- dmitriid 6y ago
  British series "Yes, Minister" / "Yes, Prime Minister" immediately come to mind.
- dragonwriter 6y ago
  > Even when the outside interests don't write the legislation, it's the staff and not actually politicians that too: politicians are basically constantly in meetings / at events and have no time for such work. That's a little bit true but mostly misleading. As with any office with professional staff, most of the work of a legislative office is done by the staff, not the head of the office, true. OTOH, that doesn't mean the the skill, knowledge, and understanding of the head of the office is irrelevant, as the head directs the staff strategically, reviews, inquires, refines, and redirects work, etc. > Nothing prevents the staff from being retained from when legislator to the next. The new legislators not having the skill to select appropriate staff might, but a bigger problem isn't that the staff aren't retained but that they usually are; the less skilled the legislators are, the more the professional staff (who probably are shuttling back and forth between working for legislators and working for interest groups) do not only the detail work, but also control the agenda, and the less which faces the electorate sends to fill the nominally most important seats actually matter.
  - Ericson2314 6y ago
    That's a better argument, but also note that's it's a preventable mistake of legislatures not to rehire and therefore force the conflict of interest revolving door issue. Also note that this sort of negligence is happening today despite a lack of fedral congressional term limits: https://www.brookings.edu/blog/fixgov/2017/05/24/vital-stats-congress-has-a-staffing-problem-too/ https://www.brookings.edu/blog/fixgov/2017/05/24/vital-stats... . I can't find a source but I believe there is a similar issue with the per-congressperson researcher appropriations. So while perhaps less turnover helps make for stabler staffing jobs, it's not a cure-all. Ultimately the balance between Expertise and Democracy is a difficult one that we need to do a better job at (usually having not enough of both!) with or without term limits.
whyenot 6y ago
Many legislators come to the job with previous experience serving at the county or city level. Once they have are elected at the state level they can serve for up to 12 years. To me, that seems like a reasonable balance between giving them enough time to gain experience while not allowing them to stay in office forever and amass the power and corruption that led to the passage of term limits (proposition 140) in the first place.
- ende 6y ago
  The academic literature is overwhelming support of the argument that legislative term limits have zero value. They only lead to inexperienced, ineffective legislators.
  - whyenot 6y ago
    It would be nice to have a citation or two from said academic literature.
    - karlp 6y ago
      https://www.brookings.edu/blog/fixgov/2018/01/18/five-reasons-to-oppose-congressional-term-limits/ https://www.brookings.edu/blog/fixgov/2018/01/18/five-reason...
      - dmitriid 6y ago
        It's not academic literature, it's an op-ed piece. And every one of the 5 reasons can be challenged. Especially the "less choice" one.
        Ericson2314 6y ago
        I actually think the argument about committee chairing is a bit more credible than what's been said in this thread. Stability definitely can help nurture depth more than a parade of different positions.

d23 6y ago

> I've never understood this argument. Potential "yay" and "nay" votes are both term-limited, so the "inexperience" should cancel out? What? Take this to it's logical conclusion and imagine term limits of 1 day. No one would be making sound decisions with those yeas and nays. And why would they always be 50 / 50 and "cancel out"? If you know nothing about a fairly complex topic, it's easy to be mislead, especially by someone with an ulterior motive that's playing a game much longer than your term limits.

Ericson2314 6y ago
> Imagine term limits of 1 day. No one would be making sound decisions with those yeas and nays. I have no idea what terms limits of 1 day would do; it's not obvious to me. Please argue your point. > And why would they always be 50 / 50 and "cancel out"? I'm not talking about a vote split additive cancel out. I'm talking about how in `(termLimit * nFor) / (termLimit * nAgainst)` the `termLimit` factors cancel out. > If you know nothing about a fairly complex topic, it's easy to be mislead, especially by someone with an ulterior motive that's playing a game much longer than your term limits. Again you seem to be imagining legislators are dead at the end of the term and born at the beginning or something. They have plenty time to study the role before (c.f. the stereotypical centrist-psychopath politician planning from elementary school), and plenty of their career to be judged on their actions after. Don't get me wrong, there are plenty of factors that reinforce the status quo, but I still haven't heard a decent argument term limits aren't obviously among them one way or the other.
- m12k 6y ago
  Not the person you are replying to, but I think the point they are trying to make is that the less experience a politician has, the more likely they are to believe what they are told by someone with an agenda who is trying to influence them, e.g. special interests. So the lack of experience doesn't cancel out for yea and nay when it comes to any given vote, because special interests will be lobbying mostly for one of the two, and thus the lack of experience (i.e. resistance to influence by having your own knowledge of the area) can tip the balance.

dragonwriter 6y ago

> I've never understood this argument. Potential "yay" and "nay" votes are both term-limited, so the "inexperience" should cancel out? Your analysis seems to think that legislation is just pushing "yay" or "nay" buttons, and that discussion of experience simply is about people having the skill to find the correct button. (Though inexperience there wouldn't cancel out, either, even with a 50/50 split in intended votes, it would lead to reduced predictability.) Legislators do more than push "yay" and "nay" buttons on packages that are assembled completely outside of their control, though.

Ericson2314 6y ago
I do think they do plenty more than "yay" or "nay", but the lack of courage among our legislatures is evidenced in both the California legislature and Congress, so I'm less inclined to think term limits is the relevant issue In California I think the huge dominance of the landowning class is more pertinent. Really, I want a non-FPTP parliamentary system. Politics should officially be a "team sport" as it is in practice, and should be a battle of ideologies not personalities. Coincidentally, these means (to me at least) that not having term limits is way less of potential problem, and so I would be against having them.

praestigiare 6y ago

That would be an accurate analysis if this was, for example, random noise in a system. But inexperience is not random, and cannot be said to "cancel out" in any meaningful way.

bregma 6y ago

> I've never understood this argument. Potential "yay" and "nay" votes are both term-limited, so the "inexperience" should cancel out? There are no term limits on C-level executives in deep-pocketed corporations and special interests. The term limits are on the legislators they buy. It's like a subscription model: you need to renew every few years to keep the gravy flowing.

Ericson2314 6y ago
This is the argument for term limits, BTW: Incumbuants are terrified of their next campaign (which is a every 2 years threat for representatives in the House, btw.) whereas more term limits means more brazen lame ducks. Then again, lame ducks need a job afterword so it's a bad augment too. My conclusions is that term limits seam mostly for show, with muddle benefits and disadvantages. Perhaps the real policy move is term limits + enough UBI that the lame ducks are truly safe no matter what. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sortition https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sortition is a neat idea which is like term limits but on steroids: you're as suddenly on the job as you are suddenly off it. I think this example, with the heightened stakes / wider Overton window, makes for the more interesting debate.

lazzlazzlazz 6y ago

Inexperience should "cancel out"? This mental model of how legislature is developed and then passed is probably the silliest I've ever heard. You should be more discerning of your thought processes.