13 ms·

Longer elected terms would lead to better government?

36 points by lkrubner 4y ago

jleyank 4y ago
"Longer terms for politicians leads to better government. If legislators were elected for terms of 9 or 11 years then the democracies would enjoy much better leadership than what they currently get." Then by simple reasoning, the best government possible would be to elect them for life - they'd never have to pander again. Yeah, there's a /s missing, but I think you'd get better government by attracting better people than those interested in being in government. Perhaps term limits, certainly limits on lobbying or donations, anything to make corruption harder and (somehow) make results attainable.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- bryanrasmussen 4y ago
  >Then by simple reasoning yeah, but more complex reasoning might suppose that for some things there might be a sweet spot, that is to say the efficiency might rise for a number of years, but then decline.
  - HPsquared 4y ago
    Or, to add complexity, longer terms would improve some measures and worsen others, each measure having its own sweet spot. Then it's left to each stakeholder to weigh the importance of each factor to them. To find the global optimum you then need to weight the relative importance of each stakeholder and each opinion held by each. Impossible, of course! Edit: that's not even including how all of these assessments vary over time, and also the peoples' expectations and predictions of the future variation, even if all of the above is known at one point in time.
    - coldtea 4y ago
      >Or, to add complexity, longer terms would improve some measures and worsen others, each measure having its own sweet spot. So maybe there shouldn't be a signle government? But e.g. elect a "government for economy", "government for internal affairs", "government for education" etc?
- BurningFrog 4y ago
  I think of this as the "If one beer is good, ten beers must be even better!" fallacy. It probably has a formal name that I won't look up right now.
  - haswell 4y ago
    I’m not exactly sure if this is formally defined, but at the very least it seems like black and white thinking, e.g. more = good, less = bad, therefore more + more must be good too. It ignores the nuance of what happens as the quantity grows. If I stay awake for two extra hours, I can get more done in a day. Conclusion: I’ll stay up 24 hours/day for maximum efficiency.
- lkrubner 4y ago
  From the essay: "Finally, I’ll add a different kind of example, an example we mentioned in an earlier essay: it is worth noting that during the debate over the Brexit treaty, from 2016-2020, the Tories in the House Of Lords were far more reasonable and rational than the Tories in the House Of Commons. This example is especially interesting since we are comparing people who belonged to the same political party. The only difference between them is that one group was free to think about the long-term consequences of the treaty, while the other group was under pressure to pander."
  - xamolxix 4y ago
    > The only difference between them is that one group was free to think about the long-term consequences of the treaty, while the other group was under pressure to pander. I agree that's the difference, I don't think it comes from the term length though. The lords are toothless so it doesen't make sense to apply your presure/lobying there. Also some percentage of them weren't politicians before being named in the lords.
- mc32 4y ago
  The supreme court while not a directly elected body, is selected by elected officials. They are selected for life and for the most part are less partisan and less pandering. On the other hand, they are there for life. For elected officials, I would like longer terms for members of the house of representatives to have longer terms but with an option to get kicked out, if they severely underperform or go against their mandate --but kicking them out should take 60% rather than simple majority to avoid the threat of agitators who constantly would threaten recall elections. Just like calls to the 25 amendment should have to go through a non-partisan committee made up of independents to decide if an official should be removed --not just because the opposition does not like the official.
  - jleyank 4y ago
    This is it quite so true in the us now, which will hurt the reputation of the supremes and harm political unity/involvement. Gotta pick “good people” for these kinds of jobs rather than flunkies.
  - landemva 4y ago
    >>> members of the house of representatives ... to get kicked out That is in the federal constitution for Senators. Or it was until the lobbyists took over by pretending things would be better if Senators are beholden to lobbyists instead of being recalled by States. https://constitutioncenter.org/interactive-constitution/interpretation/amendment-xvii/interps/147 https://constitutioncenter.org/interactive-constitution/inte... Good read, for those interested in going back to what worked better. "George Mason argued that state legislative selection gave states the power of self-defense against the federal government."
  - lkrubner 4y ago
    It is often said that the USA Supreme Court is politicized because it is chosen by elected officials, whereas in Britain the recommendations for the high court is made by legalists, and therefore the British high court is less political.
- specialist 4y ago
  Length of terms is not the sole parameter.
h2odragon 4y ago
Shorter terms devolve the actual functions of governance to unelected, long term burrocrats, thereby ensuring the reigns of power are held in a stable structure that cannot be perturbed by passing social fancies. and that would be better yet, right? I think that best government is least government; if we need a "governing class" hanging around all the time, then making sure they're webbed up and tied down with process, procedures, and other bullshit to the point of almost total sclerosis is the best way for society to survive their presence.
- bryanrasmussen 4y ago
  >I think that best government is least government... and thus if need a project management class in the company then making sure they're webbed up and tied down with process, procedures, and other bullshit to the point of almost total sclerosis is the best way to get our projects delivered on time and under budget!
  - the_other 4y ago
    I’ve been wondering if we should replace government entirely with all the project managers. They all huddle together learning strategies, processes and practicing on one another. They can read history and philosophy too if deemed useful. The actual work gets done by everyone else. When a project comes up, the project team applies for a manager or two for just their one project. “Government” helps determine the appropriate management system for the project outcomes and rents/gives the project a (team of) managers trained in Scrum/PRINCE/Consensus/holocracy/etc. At the end of the project the team disbands and the managers return to the pool.
- lesuorac 4y ago
  > Shorter terms devolve the actual functions of governance to unelected, long term burrocrats, thereby ensuring the reigns of power are held in a stable structure that cannot be perturbed by passing social fancies. Does it though? It's much more than just the heads of agencies that are political appointees [1] that change with administrations. It may appear that the government can be slowed by paperwork but there really is no penalty for the executive branch (or any branch) to just ignore the other branches (ex. [2]). [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_appointments_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_appointments_in_the_... [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trail_of_Tears#Legal_background https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trail_of_Tears#Legal_backgroun...
eqNotEq 4y ago
Contradicts actual economics research that voting out incumbents helps create opportunity for the public: https://www.nber.org/papers/w29766 https://www.nber.org/papers/w29766 I’m far more inclined to listen to the second most influential economic policy group in the US (after Brookings) than a random blogger who makes it sound like giving a monopoly on power is a good idea.
- Clubber 4y ago
  As I see it, the incentives for longer terms would be the politicians are allowed to plan for longer time frames. Whether they do or not is another story. I would say this more applies to term limits as politicians can keep getting elected for essentially a life term. The incentive for shorter terms, is you can get rid of the bad ones faster, whether we do or not is another story. >And yet, the evidence is overwhelming that, in real life, the majority of voters do not keep track of what politicians are doing. Of course, a constant barrage of the latest transgression of the culture war, and endless discussion of unsolvable wedge issues adds a whole lot of noise to this tracking mechanism. There is also a whole lot of spin, "he really didn't do that the way you say because ... the other party," etc. There's also not a lot of reporting on what bills are actually passed either. IMO, we've gotta start voting out the incumbents until we start to have a government we feel comfortable ruling over us. It's the only power we really have.
  - eqNotEq 4y ago
    Look we have plenty of long term officials in Congress. It’s a train wreck. Their plans enacted insulate them from real work and threaten the public with repercussions for not doing the work they won’t. It was tried. This is the result; another nostalgia obsessed group of elites an gerontocrats bleating story and words of power that are nonsense. We should ban old people from roles that impact the next generations they won’t be around for. It’s tacit ageism against the youth but no one will call it that. It’s shocking how kowtowed we are by people we’ve just seen have no ability to support themselves without abusing workers. So much for American memes of self sufficiency. Their self sufficiency is still based upon dumping on lower castes.
thrill 4y ago
A random 2000 people from twitter would give better government than what we have.
- mantas 4y ago
  Twitter? Hell no. HN? Maybe...
  - adamors 4y ago
    HN users would nitpick everything and anything ad infinitum and never get anything done.
    - bombcar 4y ago
      Many would suggest a government that gets nothing done is perhaps as close to perfect as you can obtain.
- tryptophan 4y ago
  Sortition would no joke give a perfectly representative legislative body.
  - turbinerneiter 4y ago
    Against Elections: The Case for Democracy, by David Van Reybrouck Really good book. Not sure if this would be the "perfect" system, but I think we should at least incorporate some aspects of it. One of my main issue with modern politics is that politicians and political parties are out of touch with people. The general populace does not have the financial means or organizational structure[1] to compete with professional lobbyists. Political parties have become an end unto themselves and they reward people within them that serve the interest of the party, over good leaders, which is evident by the sometimes ridiculous virtue signaling. [1] Parties were supposed and used to be that organizational structure
- nayuki 4y ago
  We should totally play "Twitch Plays Pokémon" in real life: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twitch_Plays_Pok%C3%A9mon https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twitch_Plays_Pok%C3%A9mon
erellsworth 4y ago
Ok, but I think strange women lying in ponds distributing swords would be better.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- h2odragon 4y ago
  Agreed. There's a bit of an authentication problem; and some practicalities: which pond?
  - erellsworth 4y ago
    Well, we should probably defer to local ponds for local leadership. Perhaps larger bodies of water could be used for higher positions. To be President you have to collect swords from both Atlantic and Pacific oceans. Vice President could be chosen by the Great Lakes.
    - Ekaros 4y ago
      How do we authenticate the swords? And who has the root of trust?
      - erellsworth 4y ago
        Something something blockchain.
        h2odragon 4y ago
        No, that's more "sword in a rock" which was the previous generation of the technology
cafard 4y ago
Practically speaking, turnover in the US Senate is pretty low. Thomas Benton wrote a memoir called Thirty Years in the Senate of the United States, when that was a very long tenure. Chuck Grassley is in his 41st year, and has talked of running again. Mitch McConnell is in his seventh term.
- lkrubner 4y ago
  From the essay: "We previously listed some of the most admired leaders of both the left and the right and we noted that all of them came from safe seats. In the case of someone like Margaret Thatcher, it was a deliberate choice to give her a Tory safe seat. And safe seats help create great leaders, since it allows those leaders to focus on leadership, rather than having to think about elections. In other words, over the last 300 years, to the extent that the democracies have had good leadership, this has been achieved through a bit of engineering, where the system grants certain leaders lifetime posts, while pretending to do something different."
  - AnimalMuppet 4y ago
    OK, but how's that working out in the US Senate, or even in the House? It has worked out, at times in the past - there was decent leadership there on occasion. But at the moment, we still have people who pretty much have safe seats, but the leadership is... rather lacking.
  - bombcar 4y ago
    Or could it be that when a party recognizes a good leader, they put them in safe seat?
    - lkrubner 4y ago
      That is what it says: "In the case of someone like Margaret Thatcher, it was a deliberate choice to give her a Tory safe seat."
  - cafard 4y ago
    Right, and the Democratic Party gave Hilary Clinton a safe seat in New York. How'd that work out in 2016?
padseeker 4y ago
In theory this sounds promising. However I think the current problem of government these days isn't the elected officials but rather the disconnection between what people say they want and believe in and the politicians they elect. How many times am I going to read about someone who voted for Brexit then suffer the consequences of exactly what they were warned about - farmers, fishermen, expats living abroad who voted for Brexit, and then when they suffer consequences of leaving the EU their response is "This is not what I voted for!" Uh, yes, actually you did. This is exactly what you voted for.
- lkrubner 4y ago
  Addressed in a previous essay: https://demodexio.substack.com/p/how-to-fix-democracy-empower-the?s=w https://demodexio.substack.com/p/how-to-fix-democracy-empowe...
engineer_22 4y ago
This is a problem as old as thought itself. One of the worlds first philosophers, Plato, wrote a book about it. He agreed, the best form of government is one where the terms are longer. He showed us what a democracy gets you - it's government by the least common denominator. It devolves to sensualism, that is, the highest aim of the people is to satisfy their desires, and they capture the government for that purpose. - My unsolicited opinion: a government reflects its people. If the people are corrupt, so too the government. I think the framers of the US Constitution understood it, and knowing their peers corruptible, set up precedent and procedure to ensure stable government. We've had some rocky patches, and we're encountering another bumpy stretch of trail, but with history as our guide, we'll pull together when the moment's need arises.
- loceng 4y ago
  Isn't it more that if corrupt people aren't held accountable, so too the government is corrupt - or something like that? Regulatory capture/policy capture by for-profit industrial complexes seems never ending, each major industry taking its turn at extracting wealth - which wouldn't be so much of a problem if individuals weren't left behind or extracted enough to suffocate them towards death.
- dangerface 4y ago
  > My unsolicited opinion: a government reflects its people. A democracy tends to reflect its people a dictatorship tends to reflect the dictator.
- Aperocky 4y ago
  > we'll pull together when the moment's need arises. Unless the need are manifesting slow enough (e.g. climate change).
  - mftb 4y ago
    Yours is a great point, because it brings to light the follow-on question; what system, or improvements to an existing one, would help people work towards longer-term goals? I think it's a difficult ask, because even a responsible, civic-minded person, will honestly, almost always, choose to satisfy an immediate, personal, need over a concrete, community, ~500 year goal. (I'm not just speaking to climate, change here. I'm honestly interested in how groups might genuinely work toward such goals).
duxup 4y ago
The older I get the more I think that democracy is a moving target. These policies can be good, bad or whatever. Motivations and people's voting choices vary wildly. I think of it more as "would I like to try longer elected terms?" more than believing one or the other is better.
dangerface 4y ago
I hear this argument and look at every authoritarian dictator that has been in power their whole life but they all seem to lead shitty governments not good ones. I call bs. I think most people are bad at leading and an easy way to get rid of bad leaders results in better governance than a bad leader that has life long power.
gumby 4y ago
Here’s a counter example: France reduced its presidential term from seven to five years because it found that the longer term exhibited worse hysteresis.* Also, California implemented term limits which have made the government worse: rather than having a politician learn the ropes and build a specific practice over time, they get into office, spend a term learning and doing a little useful stuff; by the second term they can start to be really useful, but have to think about their next job as well. This has increased the power of lobbyists who do have longer tenure. * The specific problem was electing an unpopular and corrupt president because his alternative was worse.
- flashfaffe2 4y ago
  Actually, France reduced it's political term mainly for avoiding the " cohabitation" effect. But agree the short term led the impossibility to define and implement a Vision.
- bombcar 4y ago
  Term limits are a band-aid without a purpose, at least in the USA, because each and every "term" person could get primaried. Since they don't, term limits are mostly sour grapes on the part of the losing faction. So they literally become "you can vote for whomever you want, except the person you actually want".
  - gumby 4y ago
    > you can vote for whomever you want, except the person you actually want". That’s basically a problem of every governmental system, including autocratic ones (why should that person be king? Well at this point trying to change it would lead to a power struggle that would be even worse, so I’ll just put up with it). Democracies are all about trade offs and mostly about least worst decisions. Still superior to anything else tried so far.
glennvtx 4y ago
No elected terms would lead to a better government.
- pc86 4y ago
  You either mean "no government" or "leader for life," which are basically two opposite sides of a spectrum.
  - glennvtx 4y ago
    this is an argument from incredulity, We could form a system for justice that is completely distributed, with no hierarchy of leaders, where every complaint of trespass is filed on ( for example ) a blockchain, a random jury is drawn from a pool of volunteers to hear every case, individually. The same infrastructure could be used to organize funding for public works, I.e. "this road brought to you by X" or, "5% of every purchase goes toward Y".
dudul 4y ago
I wish we would stop equating "election" with "democracy" and give a serious look at sortition. Pandering and career politicians are the issue, it doesn't go away with longer terms.
paulpauper 4y ago
yeah like in turkey. 60% inflation now . great idea. We need better leaders, not longer terms. The possible benefits of longer terms are probably negated by the deleteriousness of having an inept leader in office too long and no way to dispose of him.
stormbrew 4y ago
In terms of the US i think there are deeper problems to be fixed before really worrying about term length. A really obvious one that no one seems to want to tackle is that the sizes of political bodies in the us federal government (the house and the Supreme Court in particular) have been frozen for about 100 years while the population and diversity of the country have both exploded. Get it so that a member of the house represents a reasonable number of people (and the body as a whole can return to actually being somewhat popularly elected - right now you almost have two senates really) and the court’s ideological balance can’t be completely u-turned by 2 people dying in as many years and then you can maybe fix some other stuff.
- lkrubner 4y ago
  Addressed in a previous essay: https://demodexio.substack.com/p/how-to-fix-democracy-empower-the?s=w https://demodexio.substack.com/p/how-to-fix-democracy-empowe...
rootusrootus 4y ago
How about a nice long term for senators. Maybe 10 years. But you only get to do it once. Then, for the house of representatives, we could leverage Zoom and fill it with a few thousand representatives, make the terms very short, and then pick them through sortition.
- pc86 4y ago
  I like the idea of sortition but I can't help of feel you'd end up with employed full-time legislative staff just becoming the de facto representatives. If you're an unemployed HS dropout who gets selected to be a representative, you're either going to listen to the committee staffer who's been working on this tax or education bill for the last 2 years, you're going to listen to whatever other representative manages to convince you to just vote however they vote, or you're just going to vote randomly (or not at all). Option 1 seems most likely.
  - bombcar 4y ago
    Given how obviously current politicians just "vote like they're supposed to" I fear you're correct. You'd have to add something else to sortition, like the legislature themselves have to come up with the laws without the staffers, or sortition them too.
  - rootusrootus 4y ago
    Perhaps requiring all legislation to start with the senate would help mitigate that somewhat.
  - lkrubner 4y ago
    We can go further down this road, moving all political power to the committees: https://demodexio.substack.com/p/why-have-politics-in-the-usa-become?s=w https://demodexio.substack.com/p/why-have-politics-in-the-us...
pc86 4y ago
I might be inclined to think this would be a good idea but only if it was coupled with a term limit of 1. If you get to run for a theoretically unlimited number of 9-year terms, that's just our current system with fewer elections. But, if you run for Congress and are prohibited from any legislative position once your 9-year term is up, you might actually be incentivized to try and be productive.
- lkrubner 4y ago
  From the essay: "A final thought: the top judges in Britain are appointed for 18 years, which apparently is the length of time that Britain thinks offers the best balance of accountability and independence. So maybe our politicians should be elected for a single term of 18 years, with no chance of running for a second term? In such a case, they could spend 100% of their time focused on their legacy, without having to spend one minute thinking about re-election. If we outlaw a second term, but give them the equivalent of 4 terms, then they have the incentive and pressure to do some good in the limited time they have been granted."
pydry 4y ago
Where to start... In a democracy, pandering to the citizenry is kind of the point. Long term plans that work and are popular are often continued even by governments with diametrically opposed agendas. What would lead to better democracy is a populace that isnt informed by network TV and tabloids with owners who have diametrically opposed interests to their readers/viewers, not longer term limits. Blairite governments werent neoliberal because of short term limits. They were neoliberal coz thats what the blairites/brownites were. The theory that voters dont punish bad behavior is fairly well disproved just by looking at the last presidential election.
- dragonwriter 4y ago
  > What would lead to better democracy Is actually having an effectively democratic system, starting with an electoral system which produces proportional representation.
- lkrubner 4y ago
  From the essay, quoting Democracy For Realists: ---------------------- By Christopher H. Achen & Larry M. Bartels Page 110-111 Canes-Wrone, Herron, and Shotts’s analysis identifies the circumstances under which an incumbent may be tempted to “pander” - implementing the policy preferred by the voters even though her private information suggests that it will not serve their interests. In their basic model, pandering occurs when the probability is not too high that the inferiority of the voters’ preferred policy will be revealed before the next election (and if the expected quality of a prospective challenger is strong enough that the incumbent has to worry about her public standing at election time).
  - pydry 4y ago
    This model essentially glosses over the phenomenona of policies sold to voters as fixes for their problems by dishonest media. It also assumes that politicians essentially only want one term and would be perfectly content to be destroyed electorally in their third term if they can win their second term.
    - 4y ago
ISL 4y ago
I'm a big fan of Virginia's governor system. The term is six years. You can be governor as many times as you like, but you cannot succeed yourself. It's term limits without the limit and provides the elected official with enough time to get something meaningful done. If you elect the wrong one, though, you're stuck with 'em for a while.
mro_name 4y ago
What would happen in the case of mandates by lot, as in the case of jurors or citizens' councils? Has anyone ever investigated this?
dangerface 4y ago
> Activists run for office and get in and fight for what they believe, to the extent that the system allows them to do so. We often see politicians fight for unpopular ideas, simply because they believe those ideas are morally good. Name an activist that got any sort of political power? just one. Politicians talk, they say nice things the populous likes to hear they don't fight for unpopular ideas that would reduce their change of getting reelected. The truth is that in a democracy long term projects like building infrastructure is done by long term agencies and politicians just take credit. I think op hears politicians take credit and say if only I am reelected leader for life I will build more bigger and better and op believe them.
dukeofdoom 4y ago
Yeah, I don't think so. The way we know we still live in a democracy if there's turn over. Some US politicians predate the fall of the Soviet Union. Politics should be competitive. Not fixed. If you let them stay too long, they will find ways to start stuffing ballot boxes.
specialist 4y ago
Observing agency heads run circles around elected representatives during hearings, I quickly flipped to oppose term limits. There are so many obvious, non-controversial good government reforms. Applicable to all levels of govt: federal, state, county, city, districts, boards, etc. living wages full staff public financing of campaigns proportional representation (assemblies) & approval voting (executive positions) lengthen the legislative calendar, maybe even open ended default to public disclosure, eg data.gov for all I could go on and on. So could everyone else with even a little bit of policy experience.
bartchamdo 4y ago
I see lots of comments about democracy/democracies yet all examples that I read are not the way the original democracy was designed. All of them are republics, which is where the problems begin regardless of the length of time a politician is in place. The world would be a far better place if there were actual democracies in place, however you wouldn’t have mega wealthy people and that simply cannot stand in today world.
Proven 4y ago
a_imho 4y ago
Hard disagree. If we increase the delay in a control loop it will affect its stability. In fact, it is very hard to argue against the opposite, namely (arbitrarily) short terms from a theoretical pov. How legit is a government which does not have the support of the population at any given time? Or intuitively as t tends to infinity the system would be tending to some form of dictatorship.
Alexbades 4y ago

36 points by lkrubner 4y ago

"Longer terms for politicians leads to better government. If legislators were elected for terms of 9 or 11 years then the democracies would enjoy much better leadership than what they currently get." Then by simple reasoning, the best government possible would be to elect them for life - they'd never have to pander again. Yeah, there's a /s missing, but I think you'd get better government by attracting better people than those interested in being in government. Perhaps term limits, certainly limits on lobbying or donations, anything to make corruption harder and (somehow) make results attainable.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
bryanrasmussen 4y ago
>Then by simple reasoning yeah, but more complex reasoning might suppose that for some things there might be a sweet spot, that is to say the efficiency might rise for a number of years, but then decline.
- HPsquared 4y ago
  Or, to add complexity, longer terms would improve some measures and worsen others, each measure having its own sweet spot. Then it's left to each stakeholder to weigh the importance of each factor to them. To find the global optimum you then need to weight the relative importance of each stakeholder and each opinion held by each. Impossible, of course! Edit: that's not even including how all of these assessments vary over time, and also the peoples' expectations and predictions of the future variation, even if all of the above is known at one point in time.
  - coldtea 4y ago
    >Or, to add complexity, longer terms would improve some measures and worsen others, each measure having its own sweet spot. So maybe there shouldn't be a signle government? But e.g. elect a "government for economy", "government for internal affairs", "government for education" etc?
BurningFrog 4y ago
I think of this as the "If one beer is good, ten beers must be even better!" fallacy. It probably has a formal name that I won't look up right now.
- haswell 4y ago
  I’m not exactly sure if this is formally defined, but at the very least it seems like black and white thinking, e.g. more = good, less = bad, therefore more + more must be good too. It ignores the nuance of what happens as the quantity grows. If I stay awake for two extra hours, I can get more done in a day. Conclusion: I’ll stay up 24 hours/day for maximum efficiency.
lkrubner 4y ago
From the essay: "Finally, I’ll add a different kind of example, an example we mentioned in an earlier essay: it is worth noting that during the debate over the Brexit treaty, from 2016-2020, the Tories in the House Of Lords were far more reasonable and rational than the Tories in the House Of Commons. This example is especially interesting since we are comparing people who belonged to the same political party. The only difference between them is that one group was free to think about the long-term consequences of the treaty, while the other group was under pressure to pander."
- xamolxix 4y ago
  > The only difference between them is that one group was free to think about the long-term consequences of the treaty, while the other group was under pressure to pander. I agree that's the difference, I don't think it comes from the term length though. The lords are toothless so it doesen't make sense to apply your presure/lobying there. Also some percentage of them weren't politicians before being named in the lords.
mc32 4y ago
The supreme court while not a directly elected body, is selected by elected officials. They are selected for life and for the most part are less partisan and less pandering. On the other hand, they are there for life. For elected officials, I would like longer terms for members of the house of representatives to have longer terms but with an option to get kicked out, if they severely underperform or go against their mandate --but kicking them out should take 60% rather than simple majority to avoid the threat of agitators who constantly would threaten recall elections. Just like calls to the 25 amendment should have to go through a non-partisan committee made up of independents to decide if an official should be removed --not just because the opposition does not like the official.
- jleyank 4y ago
  This is it quite so true in the us now, which will hurt the reputation of the supremes and harm political unity/involvement. Gotta pick “good people” for these kinds of jobs rather than flunkies.
- landemva 4y ago
  >>> members of the house of representatives ... to get kicked out That is in the federal constitution for Senators. Or it was until the lobbyists took over by pretending things would be better if Senators are beholden to lobbyists instead of being recalled by States. https://constitutioncenter.org/interactive-constitution/interpretation/amendment-xvii/interps/147 https://constitutioncenter.org/interactive-constitution/inte... Good read, for those interested in going back to what worked better. "George Mason argued that state legislative selection gave states the power of self-defense against the federal government."
- lkrubner 4y ago
  It is often said that the USA Supreme Court is politicized because it is chosen by elected officials, whereas in Britain the recommendations for the high court is made by legalists, and therefore the British high court is less political.
specialist 4y ago
Length of terms is not the sole parameter.

h2odragon 4y ago

Shorter terms devolve the actual functions of governance to unelected, long term burrocrats, thereby ensuring the reigns of power are held in a stable structure that cannot be perturbed by passing social fancies. and that would be better yet, right? I think that best government is least government; if we need a "governing class" hanging around all the time, then making sure they're webbed up and tied down with process, procedures, and other bullshit to the point of almost total sclerosis is the best way for society to survive their presence.

bryanrasmussen 4y ago
>I think that best government is least government... and thus if need a project management class in the company then making sure they're webbed up and tied down with process, procedures, and other bullshit to the point of almost total sclerosis is the best way to get our projects delivered on time and under budget!
- the_other 4y ago
  I’ve been wondering if we should replace government entirely with all the project managers. They all huddle together learning strategies, processes and practicing on one another. They can read history and philosophy too if deemed useful. The actual work gets done by everyone else. When a project comes up, the project team applies for a manager or two for just their one project. “Government” helps determine the appropriate management system for the project outcomes and rents/gives the project a (team of) managers trained in Scrum/PRINCE/Consensus/holocracy/etc. At the end of the project the team disbands and the managers return to the pool.
lesuorac 4y ago
> Shorter terms devolve the actual functions of governance to unelected, long term burrocrats, thereby ensuring the reigns of power are held in a stable structure that cannot be perturbed by passing social fancies. Does it though? It's much more than just the heads of agencies that are political appointees [1] that change with administrations. It may appear that the government can be slowed by paperwork but there really is no penalty for the executive branch (or any branch) to just ignore the other branches (ex. [2]). [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_appointments_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_appointments_in_the_... [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trail_of_Tears#Legal_background https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trail_of_Tears#Legal_backgroun...

eqNotEq 4y ago

Contradicts actual economics research that voting out incumbents helps create opportunity for the public: https://www.nber.org/papers/w29766 https://www.nber.org/papers/w29766 I’m far more inclined to listen to the second most influential economic policy group in the US (after Brookings) than a random blogger who makes it sound like giving a monopoly on power is a good idea.

Clubber 4y ago
As I see it, the incentives for longer terms would be the politicians are allowed to plan for longer time frames. Whether they do or not is another story. I would say this more applies to term limits as politicians can keep getting elected for essentially a life term. The incentive for shorter terms, is you can get rid of the bad ones faster, whether we do or not is another story. >And yet, the evidence is overwhelming that, in real life, the majority of voters do not keep track of what politicians are doing. Of course, a constant barrage of the latest transgression of the culture war, and endless discussion of unsolvable wedge issues adds a whole lot of noise to this tracking mechanism. There is also a whole lot of spin, "he really didn't do that the way you say because ... the other party," etc. There's also not a lot of reporting on what bills are actually passed either. IMO, we've gotta start voting out the incumbents until we start to have a government we feel comfortable ruling over us. It's the only power we really have.
- eqNotEq 4y ago
  Look we have plenty of long term officials in Congress. It’s a train wreck. Their plans enacted insulate them from real work and threaten the public with repercussions for not doing the work they won’t. It was tried. This is the result; another nostalgia obsessed group of elites an gerontocrats bleating story and words of power that are nonsense. We should ban old people from roles that impact the next generations they won’t be around for. It’s tacit ageism against the youth but no one will call it that. It’s shocking how kowtowed we are by people we’ve just seen have no ability to support themselves without abusing workers. So much for American memes of self sufficiency. Their self sufficiency is still based upon dumping on lower castes.

thrill 4y ago

A random 2000 people from twitter would give better government than what we have.

mantas 4y ago
Twitter? Hell no. HN? Maybe...
- adamors 4y ago
  HN users would nitpick everything and anything ad infinitum and never get anything done.
  - bombcar 4y ago
    Many would suggest a government that gets nothing done is perhaps as close to perfect as you can obtain.
tryptophan 4y ago
Sortition would no joke give a perfectly representative legislative body.
- turbinerneiter 4y ago
  Against Elections: The Case for Democracy, by David Van Reybrouck Really good book. Not sure if this would be the "perfect" system, but I think we should at least incorporate some aspects of it. One of my main issue with modern politics is that politicians and political parties are out of touch with people. The general populace does not have the financial means or organizational structure[1] to compete with professional lobbyists. Political parties have become an end unto themselves and they reward people within them that serve the interest of the party, over good leaders, which is evident by the sometimes ridiculous virtue signaling. [1] Parties were supposed and used to be that organizational structure
nayuki 4y ago
We should totally play "Twitch Plays Pokémon" in real life: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twitch_Plays_Pok%C3%A9mon https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twitch_Plays_Pok%C3%A9mon

erellsworth 4y ago

Ok, but I think strange women lying in ponds distributing swords would be better.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
h2odragon 4y ago
Agreed. There's a bit of an authentication problem; and some practicalities: which pond?
- erellsworth 4y ago
  Well, we should probably defer to local ponds for local leadership. Perhaps larger bodies of water could be used for higher positions. To be President you have to collect swords from both Atlantic and Pacific oceans. Vice President could be chosen by the Great Lakes.
  - Ekaros 4y ago
    How do we authenticate the swords? And who has the root of trust?
    - erellsworth 4y ago
      Something something blockchain.
      - h2odragon 4y ago
        No, that's more "sword in a rock" which was the previous generation of the technology

cafard 4y ago

Practically speaking, turnover in the US Senate is pretty low. Thomas Benton wrote a memoir called Thirty Years in the Senate of the United States, when that was a very long tenure. Chuck Grassley is in his 41st year, and has talked of running again. Mitch McConnell is in his seventh term.

lkrubner 4y ago
From the essay: "We previously listed some of the most admired leaders of both the left and the right and we noted that all of them came from safe seats. In the case of someone like Margaret Thatcher, it was a deliberate choice to give her a Tory safe seat. And safe seats help create great leaders, since it allows those leaders to focus on leadership, rather than having to think about elections. In other words, over the last 300 years, to the extent that the democracies have had good leadership, this has been achieved through a bit of engineering, where the system grants certain leaders lifetime posts, while pretending to do something different."
- AnimalMuppet 4y ago
  OK, but how's that working out in the US Senate, or even in the House? It has worked out, at times in the past - there was decent leadership there on occasion. But at the moment, we still have people who pretty much have safe seats, but the leadership is... rather lacking.
- bombcar 4y ago
  Or could it be that when a party recognizes a good leader, they put them in safe seat?
  - lkrubner 4y ago
    That is what it says: "In the case of someone like Margaret Thatcher, it was a deliberate choice to give her a Tory safe seat."
- cafard 4y ago
  Right, and the Democratic Party gave Hilary Clinton a safe seat in New York. How'd that work out in 2016?

padseeker 4y ago

In theory this sounds promising. However I think the current problem of government these days isn't the elected officials but rather the disconnection between what people say they want and believe in and the politicians they elect. How many times am I going to read about someone who voted for Brexit then suffer the consequences of exactly what they were warned about - farmers, fishermen, expats living abroad who voted for Brexit, and then when they suffer consequences of leaving the EU their response is "This is not what I voted for!" Uh, yes, actually you did. This is exactly what you voted for.

lkrubner 4y ago
Addressed in a previous essay: https://demodexio.substack.com/p/how-to-fix-democracy-empower-the?s=w https://demodexio.substack.com/p/how-to-fix-democracy-empowe...

engineer_22 4y ago

This is a problem as old as thought itself. One of the worlds first philosophers, Plato, wrote a book about it. He agreed, the best form of government is one where the terms are longer. He showed us what a democracy gets you - it's government by the least common denominator. It devolves to sensualism, that is, the highest aim of the people is to satisfy their desires, and they capture the government for that purpose. - My unsolicited opinion: a government reflects its people. If the people are corrupt, so too the government. I think the framers of the US Constitution understood it, and knowing their peers corruptible, set up precedent and procedure to ensure stable government. We've had some rocky patches, and we're encountering another bumpy stretch of trail, but with history as our guide, we'll pull together when the moment's need arises.

loceng 4y ago
Isn't it more that if corrupt people aren't held accountable, so too the government is corrupt - or something like that? Regulatory capture/policy capture by for-profit industrial complexes seems never ending, each major industry taking its turn at extracting wealth - which wouldn't be so much of a problem if individuals weren't left behind or extracted enough to suffocate them towards death.
dangerface 4y ago
> My unsolicited opinion: a government reflects its people. A democracy tends to reflect its people a dictatorship tends to reflect the dictator.
Aperocky 4y ago
> we'll pull together when the moment's need arises. Unless the need are manifesting slow enough (e.g. climate change).
- mftb 4y ago
  Yours is a great point, because it brings to light the follow-on question; what system, or improvements to an existing one, would help people work towards longer-term goals? I think it's a difficult ask, because even a responsible, civic-minded person, will honestly, almost always, choose to satisfy an immediate, personal, need over a concrete, community, ~500 year goal. (I'm not just speaking to climate, change here. I'm honestly interested in how groups might genuinely work toward such goals).

duxup 4y ago

The older I get the more I think that democracy is a moving target. These policies can be good, bad or whatever. Motivations and people's voting choices vary wildly. I think of it more as "would I like to try longer elected terms?" more than believing one or the other is better.

dangerface 4y ago

I hear this argument and look at every authoritarian dictator that has been in power their whole life but they all seem to lead shitty governments not good ones. I call bs. I think most people are bad at leading and an easy way to get rid of bad leaders results in better governance than a bad leader that has life long power.

gumby 4y ago

Here’s a counter example: France reduced its presidential term from seven to five years because it found that the longer term exhibited worse hysteresis.* Also, California implemented term limits which have made the government worse: rather than having a politician learn the ropes and build a specific practice over time, they get into office, spend a term learning and doing a little useful stuff; by the second term they can start to be really useful, but have to think about their next job as well. This has increased the power of lobbyists who do have longer tenure. * The specific problem was electing an unpopular and corrupt president because his alternative was worse.

flashfaffe2 4y ago
Actually, France reduced it's political term mainly for avoiding the " cohabitation" effect. But agree the short term led the impossibility to define and implement a Vision.
bombcar 4y ago
Term limits are a band-aid without a purpose, at least in the USA, because each and every "term" person could get primaried. Since they don't, term limits are mostly sour grapes on the part of the losing faction. So they literally become "you can vote for whomever you want, except the person you actually want".
- gumby 4y ago
  > you can vote for whomever you want, except the person you actually want". That’s basically a problem of every governmental system, including autocratic ones (why should that person be king? Well at this point trying to change it would lead to a power struggle that would be even worse, so I’ll just put up with it). Democracies are all about trade offs and mostly about least worst decisions. Still superior to anything else tried so far.

glennvtx 4y ago

No elected terms would lead to a better government.

pc86 4y ago
You either mean "no government" or "leader for life," which are basically two opposite sides of a spectrum.
- glennvtx 4y ago
  this is an argument from incredulity, We could form a system for justice that is completely distributed, with no hierarchy of leaders, where every complaint of trespass is filed on ( for example ) a blockchain, a random jury is drawn from a pool of volunteers to hear every case, individually. The same infrastructure could be used to organize funding for public works, I.e. "this road brought to you by X" or, "5% of every purchase goes toward Y".

dudul 4y ago

I wish we would stop equating "election" with "democracy" and give a serious look at sortition. Pandering and career politicians are the issue, it doesn't go away with longer terms.

paulpauper 4y ago

yeah like in turkey. 60% inflation now . great idea. We need better leaders, not longer terms. The possible benefits of longer terms are probably negated by the deleteriousness of having an inept leader in office too long and no way to dispose of him.

stormbrew 4y ago

In terms of the US i think there are deeper problems to be fixed before really worrying about term length. A really obvious one that no one seems to want to tackle is that the sizes of political bodies in the us federal government (the house and the Supreme Court in particular) have been frozen for about 100 years while the population and diversity of the country have both exploded. Get it so that a member of the house represents a reasonable number of people (and the body as a whole can return to actually being somewhat popularly elected - right now you almost have two senates really) and the court’s ideological balance can’t be completely u-turned by 2 people dying in as many years and then you can maybe fix some other stuff.

lkrubner 4y ago
Addressed in a previous essay: https://demodexio.substack.com/p/how-to-fix-democracy-empower-the?s=w https://demodexio.substack.com/p/how-to-fix-democracy-empowe...

rootusrootus 4y ago

How about a nice long term for senators. Maybe 10 years. But you only get to do it once. Then, for the house of representatives, we could leverage Zoom and fill it with a few thousand representatives, make the terms very short, and then pick them through sortition.

pc86 4y ago
I like the idea of sortition but I can't help of feel you'd end up with employed full-time legislative staff just becoming the de facto representatives. If you're an unemployed HS dropout who gets selected to be a representative, you're either going to listen to the committee staffer who's been working on this tax or education bill for the last 2 years, you're going to listen to whatever other representative manages to convince you to just vote however they vote, or you're just going to vote randomly (or not at all). Option 1 seems most likely.
- bombcar 4y ago
  Given how obviously current politicians just "vote like they're supposed to" I fear you're correct. You'd have to add something else to sortition, like the legislature themselves have to come up with the laws without the staffers, or sortition them too.
- rootusrootus 4y ago
  Perhaps requiring all legislation to start with the senate would help mitigate that somewhat.
- lkrubner 4y ago
  We can go further down this road, moving all political power to the committees: https://demodexio.substack.com/p/why-have-politics-in-the-usa-become?s=w https://demodexio.substack.com/p/why-have-politics-in-the-us...

pc86 4y ago

I might be inclined to think this would be a good idea but only if it was coupled with a term limit of 1. If you get to run for a theoretically unlimited number of 9-year terms, that's just our current system with fewer elections. But, if you run for Congress and are prohibited from any legislative position once your 9-year term is up, you might actually be incentivized to try and be productive.

lkrubner 4y ago
From the essay: "A final thought: the top judges in Britain are appointed for 18 years, which apparently is the length of time that Britain thinks offers the best balance of accountability and independence. So maybe our politicians should be elected for a single term of 18 years, with no chance of running for a second term? In such a case, they could spend 100% of their time focused on their legacy, without having to spend one minute thinking about re-election. If we outlaw a second term, but give them the equivalent of 4 terms, then they have the incentive and pressure to do some good in the limited time they have been granted."

pydry 4y ago

Where to start... In a democracy, pandering to the citizenry is kind of the point. Long term plans that work and are popular are often continued even by governments with diametrically opposed agendas. What would lead to better democracy is a populace that isnt informed by network TV and tabloids with owners who have diametrically opposed interests to their readers/viewers, not longer term limits. Blairite governments werent neoliberal because of short term limits. They were neoliberal coz thats what the blairites/brownites were. The theory that voters dont punish bad behavior is fairly well disproved just by looking at the last presidential election.

dragonwriter 4y ago
> What would lead to better democracy Is actually having an effectively democratic system, starting with an electoral system which produces proportional representation.
lkrubner 4y ago
From the essay, quoting Democracy For Realists: ---------------------- By Christopher H. Achen & Larry M. Bartels Page 110-111 Canes-Wrone, Herron, and Shotts’s analysis identifies the circumstances under which an incumbent may be tempted to “pander” - implementing the policy preferred by the voters even though her private information suggests that it will not serve their interests. In their basic model, pandering occurs when the probability is not too high that the inferiority of the voters’ preferred policy will be revealed before the next election (and if the expected quality of a prospective challenger is strong enough that the incumbent has to worry about her public standing at election time).
- pydry 4y ago
  This model essentially glosses over the phenomenona of policies sold to voters as fixes for their problems by dishonest media. It also assumes that politicians essentially only want one term and would be perfectly content to be destroyed electorally in their third term if they can win their second term.
  - 4y ago

ISL 4y ago

I'm a big fan of Virginia's governor system. The term is six years. You can be governor as many times as you like, but you cannot succeed yourself. It's term limits without the limit and provides the elected official with enough time to get something meaningful done. If you elect the wrong one, though, you're stuck with 'em for a while.

mro_name 4y ago

What would happen in the case of mandates by lot, as in the case of jurors or citizens' councils? Has anyone ever investigated this?

dangerface 4y ago

> Activists run for office and get in and fight for what they believe, to the extent that the system allows them to do so. We often see politicians fight for unpopular ideas, simply because they believe those ideas are morally good. Name an activist that got any sort of political power? just one. Politicians talk, they say nice things the populous likes to hear they don't fight for unpopular ideas that would reduce their change of getting reelected. The truth is that in a democracy long term projects like building infrastructure is done by long term agencies and politicians just take credit. I think op hears politicians take credit and say if only I am reelected leader for life I will build more bigger and better and op believe them.

dukeofdoom 4y ago

Yeah, I don't think so. The way we know we still live in a democracy if there's turn over. Some US politicians predate the fall of the Soviet Union. Politics should be competitive. Not fixed. If you let them stay too long, they will find ways to start stuffing ballot boxes.

specialist 4y ago

Observing agency heads run circles around elected representatives during hearings, I quickly flipped to oppose term limits. There are so many obvious, non-controversial good government reforms. Applicable to all levels of govt: federal, state, county, city, districts, boards, etc. living wages full staff public financing of campaigns proportional representation (assemblies) & approval voting (executive positions) lengthen the legislative calendar, maybe even open ended default to public disclosure, eg data.gov for all I could go on and on. So could everyone else with even a little bit of policy experience.

bartchamdo 4y ago

I see lots of comments about democracy/democracies yet all examples that I read are not the way the original democracy was designed. All of them are republics, which is where the problems begin regardless of the length of time a politician is in place. The world would be a far better place if there were actual democracies in place, however you wouldn’t have mega wealthy people and that simply cannot stand in today world.

Proven 4y ago

a_imho 4y ago

Hard disagree. If we increase the delay in a control loop it will affect its stability. In fact, it is very hard to argue against the opposite, namely (arbitrarily) short terms from a theoretical pov. How legit is a government which does not have the support of the population at any given time? Or intuitively as t tends to infinity the system would be tending to some form of dictatorship.

Alexbades 4y ago