Term Limits

[Stinky The Clown]

.....discuss ......

[tk2kewl]

1. I love 'em

max 2 terms for senators and max 4 for reps

on edit: of course a constitutional amendment would be required but i say go for it

[Yupster]

10. I agree with you tk2kewl

We may lose a good senator's third and fourth decades once in a while, but I think it will be worth it to et some new people in and to avoid the truly ridiculous.

Besides, if someone's an awesome public servant, they can do even more good by being congresscritter, senator, and governor than just sitting in one office for 40 years.

[DemBones DemBones]

12. NO CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENTS!!!

Seriously, we need to solve things without further amending the Constitution.

And I can't favor term limits when there are a few who do a good job. Do you really want Dennis Kucinich or John Lewis or Maxine Waters out of the House?

[Hobarticus]

2. Why fire someone, if they're competent?

That doesn't make any sense, to me.

If they're incompetent or corrupt, then the people should vote them out of office. If they don't, well, they get what they get.

[GrantDem]

4. If that were enough Shrub would have been gone...

[Hobarticus]

5. Again, the people get what they vote for...

They put this jackass back up on top for another term. But that's how it goes.

Thank God for term limits for POTUS.

[DemBones DemBones]

13. VERIFIED voting is the answer there. We should

go back to paper ballots that are hand-counted. Machines are more prone to error than people.

[MindPilot]

3. Might be a good idea for SC

As for all the other politicos, we already have term limits, it's called an election. (Assuming of course one has a Diebold-free election)

[dkofos]

7. The problem is we don't have diebold free elections

And we don't have a reliable media

[Yupster]

11. Elections would work if there wasn't

gerrymandering, but in more than half the districts for congress there are no elections, or meaningful elections anyway.

My district for instance for decades was drawn specifically to put every Republican voter for hundreds of miles into this district so Democratic candidates could win nearby districts.

Therefore, no Democratic candidate had a snowball's chance, and no Republican candidate would challenge the incumbant in the primaries. Therefore, the guy stays as long as he wants to.

It's the same thing in the senate in some states.

In South Carolina no Democratic candidate culd win and no Republican would challenge Strom Thurmond so he won reelection when he was 158 years old. It's the same thing in West Virginia only reversed. Sentaor Byrd will be there until he's doddering around drooling and talking about his dog at age 102. It's ridiculous.

These people think there is no one else in the state capable of doing their jobs.

[longship]

6. I like the Constitution pretty much the way it is.

No term limits works the same for all parties. We're caught in a bit of a pickle because of Repug lock on power now. But it has worked in Dem's favor before. Term limits do not solve the core of the problem; they only apply a band-aid to it.

The problems in Congress might be better solved with other methods. Campaign reform. Electoral reform.

We should take campaigns out of the hands of corporations, completely and totally.

We should do everything we can to reduce the length of the campaign season.

We can discuss whether the electoral college is still a wise thing.

We should look at instant runoff voting, or something similar.

We should amend the Constitution to make voting a right of every citizen.

We should make national standards for open and auditable election technologies which should, as a minimum, be equivalent to manual, paper ballots.

With the exception of minor Constitutional tweaking, all this can be accomplished with majority rule congressional action.

Term limits don't solve the big problems.

And about the federal courts... Again we're in a pickle now only because of Repug lock on power. There are many good reasons for the court structure and rules exactly the way they are. I would not want to disrupt that. And again, the solution might be electoral and campaign reform for congressional and presidential offices. I would not go for term limits on the judiciary. Solve the problem at its origin.

[Stinky The Clown]

8. I tend to agree with much of what you said .......

..... particularly campaign reform.

No corporate/pac money

No private donations

100% publically funded.

Mandated free air time with 100% equal access

Teevee talking heads would be obliged to identify opinion as such - clearly, unequivocally, and frequently (like at every commercial break).

(And here's my draconian capper) A censorship on 527 (or 527-like) teevee ads. The would be completely banned.

[Dave Sund]

16. But it's a dream

Much like term limits. Do we honestly think a corrupt senate and house would pass meaningful campaign reform?

[safi0]

9. The big problem

With the courts is that these people get lifetime appointments and they are specifically told not to give direct answers to questions

[DemBones DemBones]

14. I agree with you except NO AMENDING THE CONSTITUTION!

I assume you want to give felons back the franchise once they've done their time, which is the right thing to do, but can be accomplished without an amendment.

Any other citizens who can't vote now? Just those under 18 AFAIK and I don't favor lowering voting age to 16 or 14. We probably made a mistake to lower it from 21 in the first place. No one is as wise at 18 as he or she is at 21.

[Dave Sund]

15. I really am sick of the argument...

That our term limits are elections. You can't bemoan the entrenched minority of wealthy people that control our government and at the same time say that our elections are able to change things.

It's funny that I was just thinking of posting this topic when I saw it up here.

I can totally see the benefit of it. I'm a little iffy on some details, but I'd be all for it if it ever happened. Something that will probably come back to bite me in the ass in the future, but here's my thought.

The federal budget has run amok with Congressmen who have so much pork because they are concerned about getting reelected. Imagine if Senators could spend six years without having to worry about being reelected. If Congressmen could actually get something done that didn't have to do with a campaign. If we have term limits, abuse of power is decreased. We actually have some chance at making our votes MATTER!

I don't believe it will ever happen, but term limits are almost essential to bringing any sort of true reform to our completely corrupted system.

[DaveColorado]

17. Dem Bones

I take exception to your remark about young people.

I worked on John Kerry’s campaign when I was only 20.

[Awsi Dooger]

18. I think term limits are lame

The idea just reminds me of football coaches or regimes who are on limited time, and they know it. You get stupid shortsighted, panic-mode decisions. As a Dolphin fan, I experienced those bigtime last year, with Wannstedt/Spielman making every type of disastrous move like trading a #2 for A.J. Feeley, #3 for Lamar Gordon and so on. Now we've got a coach with longterm security and a plan in that regard, and everything makes sense.

That may not equate perfectly to politics, but IMO damn close. You get guys in there for short periods and they'll overreact to the here and now, promising the voters to fix whatever is on the front page. Would saving social security, for example, be a big deal for someone who will be term limited out decades earlier?

I remember from my history courses this is anything but a slam dunk. Those who cite the Constitution and Founding Fathers are conveniently leaving out that Washington and Jeffferson supposedly favored some form of rotation in office, as it was called then. They settled on very short terms like two years for congressman as a suitable replacement, never projecting the monetary factors of today.

Where do you draw the line? Term limits may make some sense at the federal level, where candidates are in abundance, but in many small rural areas you've got one outstanding politician who is more than willing to take over for decades. Toss him/her out after a short and arbitrary period and you may create a self-inflicted certified mess.

[MaineDem]

19. We have term limits in the Maine Legislature

It's worked to give lobbyists much more power. They've become the ones with the institutional knowledge.

I don't think it's a great idea.