It goes without saying that Americans hold Congress in low
esteem. It seems like every month there’s
a new survey released that talks about the ridiculously low approval ratings
folks have for our elected officials in Washington. There are certainly many reasons for this –
partisan bickering, obstruction and a general lack of accomplishing anything. However, I believe there is an underlying
reason that many of those things occur: a lack of term limits for our Senators
and Representatives.
Because there are no term limits for those in Congress, we
essentially have a political ruling class that, on average, serves longer than
the lifetime appointments of those on the U.S. Supreme Court. Such a situation is ripe for corruption, with
Senators and Representatives doing whatever they can to stay in office. Think about it: a Representative in the House
only serves a 2 year term. How much of
that term do they actually spend representing their constituents vs.
campaigning and raising money to get re-elected? There are currently 14 senators who have been
in the Senate for more than 20 years – and many of them were representatives
for a number of years prior to that.
There are currently 27 representatives in the House who have been
representatives for more than 20 years, include one who has been in office for
more than 50 years and 3 who have been in office more for than 40 years!
You can certainly make the case that some of this is our own
fault. Why do we keep re-electing people
who accomplish little beyond perpetuating the quagmire that is Washington,
D.C.? Part of it, however, is that the
political ruling class is laser focused on remaining the political ruling
class. They raise money and start PACs
to raise money to quash any outsiders and to keep themselves in power. Also, our representatives and senators are
supposed to represent us, We the People.
However, did you know that more than half of the people in the 113th
Congress are millionaires? That’s not
very representative, do you think? When
a bunch of millionaires solicit support from other millionaires and then work
together to protect one another, it can be very difficult for new blood to break
through and win an election. It happens
occasionally (see the defeats of Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle in 2004 and
House Majority Leader Eric Cantor in 2014), but incumbents are re-elected approximately
90% of the time.
What if that 90% re-election rate was impossible? What if, due to term limits, a portion of
Congress (say, 25%) was term-limited out of office every 2 years? By definition, we would have new blood in
Washington. The House would completely
turn over within an 8 year span. New
blood equals new ideas and new possibilities.
Maybe it will turn out that this new blood is no better at accomplishing
things than the current established ruling class. But, with the latter, we absolutely know what
we get: political stalemates, bickering, corruption and not much of anything
else. With new blood, at least there is
a chance of some change occurring. In
addition, who knows how differently the established ruling class may act and
vote if they WEREN’T always worried about the next election? If they knew that there was no next election
to worry about, they may potentially feel free to vote according to their
conscience and what is best for America rather than how they think the donors
want them to vote. Perhaps they would be
more open to working with others across the aisle if they knew there were no
potential electoral consequences six months or a year down the road.
While term limits are a foreign concept in Congress, they
are quite common in other areas of U.S. government. Besides the President being limited to two
terms, 36 states have instituted term limits for their governors and 15 states
have done so for their state legislatures.
Having term limits for those individuals hasn’t led to complete chaos
yet, so there’s no reason it couldn’t work for Congress.
Because those in Congress are unlikely to take up a cause
that may wind up costing themselves their own jobs, instituting term limits
would likely require an Article V constitutional convention, something that
hasn’t been done in, oh, a couple hundred years. However, it is something worth discussing and
working toward.
There are myriad places where you can learn more about the
arguments in favor of term limits, many written by people much smarter than
me. For starters, I recommend visiting
one of the following websites to learn more and even sign a petition for the
aforementioned constitutional convention to be held:
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