Posted on 10/08/2017 7:08:47 AM PDT by Kaslin
“Michigan’s strictest-in-the-nation term limits law will force nearly 70 percent of state senators out of office in 2019 and more than 20 percent of representatives,” reports the Detroit News, “a mass turnover that is fueling renewed interest in reform.”
What?!! Could term limitation laws actually make our poor underpaid and overworked politicians vacate their powerful perches . . . even when they don’t want to?
Heaven forbid!
Who could have foreseen this strange turn of events? Who could have predicted that limits on the number of terms politicians may stay in office would mandate that politicians, having reached that limit, would be summarily cast out to live like the rest of us?
Who, I ask you, who?
You guessed. Everyone. The “mass turnover” coming after the 2018 election cycle will indeed be caused by term limits. Booted out will be 26 of 38 state senators and 24 of 110 reps in the House.
While this level of turnover is certainly unheard of in the U.S. Congress and the 35 states lacking term limits, it is not so out of the ordinary for Michigan. For instance, the Great Lakes State saw greater turnover in 2010 with 25 senators and 34 representatives termed-out.
Somehow the state survived.
In fact, one clear result of the state’s toughest-in-the-nation term limits law is the state’s best-in-the-nation level of electoral competitiveness. In both the 2014 and 2016 election cycles, Michigan led the nation with every single state legislative seat contested. Michigan’s 100 percent competitiveness in the last two cycles compares to a national average of just 58 percent in 2016 and 57 percent in 2014.
Is it possible that voters are much fonder of competitive elections than are incumbent politicians and powerful lobbyists? Perhaps that is why the “renewed interest in reform” comes not from the state’s citizens, but their politicians.
Oh, and powerful lobbyists and special interests.
The newspaper report continues: “Term limits remain popular with the voting public, but critics say Michigan rules have thrust inexperienced legislators into complex policy issues they may be ill-equipped to address.”
Rich Studley, the Michigan Chamber of Commerce’s head-honcho, argues that “Leadership really matters, and experience really matters.” His lobbying outfit, “an influential business group with significant financial resources,” is working to organize support for a ballot measure to weaken the limits it has so vehemently opposed for the last 25 years.
Why such fierce opposition? Because term limits supposedly give too much power and influence to . . . (drum roll) . . . lobbyists and special interests.
Like the well-heeled Michigan Chamber.
Whose selflessness apparently knows no bounds.
“We don’t want [the legislature] to be strictly a place,” counters Scott Tillman, national field director of U.S. Term Limits, “where a bunch of people with an incumbent advantage have a lock on the system and are the only ones who can get elected and make decisions for the state.”
“The basic message citizens have given their government for 200 years now has been to have a Legislature full of people who represent citizens,” contends Patrick Anderson, the author of the 1992 term limits measure. “To do that effectively, you want to make sure that those legislators are periodically drawn from the citizenry, and term limits ensures that.”
Taking the opposite point of view is Wayne State University Political Science Professor Marjorie Sarbaugh-Thompson. The author of two books on term limits, she dubs Michigan “the Draconian term limits state,” and claims legislators are ineffective because they have “one eye on that clock all the time instead of thinking, ‘I need to really fix this problem because it’s going to come back to haunt me.’”
Yet, Sarbaugh-Thompson offers no analysis as to why legislators in the non-term-limited states — or the career-dominated Congress in D.C. — are much more hauntingly ineffective.
“Her research suggests Michigan’s term limits have failed to deliver on many of the ‘good government’ promises that appeal to citizens,” according to the News. What the News neglects to tell readers is that Sarbaugh-Thompson’s “research relies heavily on face-to-face interviews with Michigan’s state House members conducted in 1998, 2000, 2002 and 2004 and State Senators in 2000, 2006, and 2010.”
Why am I not surprised that “research” centered on the views of incumbent officeholders is not very favorable to limits on incumbent officeholders?
Two things we know for certain: politicians hate term limits; voters love them.
That’s why the News explains, “Any reform plan is unlikely to extend or repeal term limits, but may instead allow legislators to serve longer in the House or Senate.”
Come again? If legislators could serve “longer” than currently allowed, that would clearly “extend” the limits.
However, the political insiders behind the current scheming will want to pretend their attack on term limits is anything but. They are likely to argue that since people can now serve six years in the House and eight years in the Senate, which if they served the full time in both chambers (few do) would be 14 years, allowing 14 years in the House or 14 years in the Senate wouldn’t really be much different.
They’re lying. We know because their lips are moving. Such a change would dramatically re-entrench incumbency and undermine the competitiveness that term limits have created.
Michigan citizens, beware: The stench of a very rotten scam is now swirling through the dark corridors of the capitol in Lansing.
For all other Americans, just take a moment to imagine what would be the result if the U.S. Congress were beset with Michigan’s “mass turnover.” That would mean giving the heave-ho to 68 out of the current 100 U.S. Senators and 95 of the 435 incumbent Representatives in the House.
Imagine.
As the song goes, “It’s easy if you try.”
And fun.
I think ur right. Staff is passed around from one Congressperson to another
<>One of the biggest problems is the amount of time and effort spent on raising money. They arrive in Washington and immediately have to start raising money for the next election.<>
That’s another reason why state legislators should appoint US senators.
All good things are possible with repeal of the 17th Amendment, and impossible without it.
Article V.
Their are career staffers because there were career politicians.
Oops. “There are.”
It was a disastrous amendment which produced little or no good.
I agree, that takes care of senators ( our forefathers knew what they were doing, elect representatives and senators appointed to sent the state as a whole). We still have a problem with the house.
The original intent there was citizen representatives. Go to Washington for two years and then go back home to your business.
We need to go back to a Constitional government. Talk about draining the swamp!!!
IMHO, the way term limits should work is this. Take me for example. I, NCC-1701 wants to run for office. With term limits, I know I have only 12 to 18 years to work. That is nine House terms or three Senate terms. Or you can mix them to add up to 12 or 18 years, whatever. I run and win enough to add up to those figures. After that, I can’t lay off a cycle or any more cycles then run again. I have had my limit of time and would be prohibited from running any more. I would be out and would have to find another line of work. That’s how it should work but unfortunately won’t.
I agree, that takes care of senators ( our forefathers knew what they were doing, elect representatives and senators appointed to represent the state as a whole). We still have a problem with the house.
The original intent there was citizen representatives. Go to Washington for two years and then go back home to your business.
We need to go back to a Constitional government. Talk about draining the swamp!!!
Yes, we take two-year congressional terms for granted. The only reason the Framers didn’t go with one-year terms was due to the difficulty of 18th century travel.
As far as the qualifications go for electors to the House of Reps goes the Framers properly left the decision to the states . . . knowing that the senate would be an effective check on wild democracy.
The main problem with term limits is, early after adoption, there tends to be a surge in forced retirements and both houses are in party-line turmoil. Come to think of it, that happens anyway. The two year terms in the House (both state and fed) is and always has been stupid. It's stupid to have one of the houses potentially turn completely over, with or without term limits. The term lengths in House and Senate should be the same lengths, so should the governorship and Presidency, and elections held every year -- and never out of season, no more ****ing non-November polls, unless perchance it's a special election to fill a vacancy. Thanks Kaslin.
Term limits, especially one-term term limits make officeholders much less valuable to lobbyists because they have to pay off different people and start the procedures all over again every couple of years for people who won’t be there long enough to acquire much pull.
What did they loose? Were their belts too tight? Would they be loosing the dogs of war?
I like it except the two terms part. One term only.
That, too.
I am not opposed to awarding a successful tenure in office with at least one more term. However the total she never be more then approximately ten years e.g., two senate terms - 12 years. A decade in DC should be enough for any honest man or woman.
A decade is far too long. An honest man or woman becomes a corrupt man or woman in a much shorter time than that. My consideration is the value of legislators to people with money who want favors. A rep there for one year with no repeat is not worth the investment of someone who will be there ten years and grow influential and be able to defend the corrupt perks he has acquired for his income source. I am not in the least concerned about what is fair for the elected officials, but rather for keeping them less tightly tied to the Corporations and the NGOs and George Soros and whoever has money and desires favors.
You would have to completely disrupt the Constitution if you dramatically change the time in office for the House & Senate. Be aware as I am that limiting terms shifts power to the bureaucracy. I am willing to shift power that way a bit in order take power from the “political lifers” - career politicians.
I don’t think there is anything that can be done now or during the last quarter century to stop the slide of the nation into totalitarianism or some form of command society. The die was cast with the ratification of the 16th, 17th,and 19th Amendments and with the erection of the Federal Reserve- all in a very short span of time at the beginning of the last century. What I would like to see happen in my dreams is a wholesale termination of all the Agencies (and all their associated programs) beyond the original four Departments with the simple discharge of all the affected employees. We don’t owe them anything at all for their closing the walls of the state in on the population.
That is outstanding!
Have you submitted this to anyone in Congress? (Not that I think it has a snowball’s chance of being enacted, but I think it is still a great idea to bring up.)
Or maybe one of those online petitions? I’m sure you could easily get the necessary number of people supporting it.
I’d suggest a slight rewording so that it doesn’t sound like lobbying is exempted along with military service. We could probably wordsmith it here on FR if needed.
Another great idea.
I’d be sure to specify that the residents must be citizens.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.