Speaking from experience, candidates run on hot button issues. I have seen County government contenders say that they are going to cut social services and give the money to cops, that they are going to get better education in the schools. Then they are voted in. They discover that they have no jurisdiction over schools. That the Sheriff, DA, Treasurer and Auditor are also elected officials with their own authorities over which they have little control. They discover that all those onerous codes the County has in building and planning are the state minimum and can’t be thrown out. They find out that social service programs are state and federally funded and there is little discretion over their budget. They discover that they need a majority of the Board to vote the way they want to make change.
Then they find out that they are expected to be experts enough to make decisions on many other things: natural resources and land use management, investment of reserve funds, reinsurance and finance, bond issuance, domestic violence, facilities building, jail management, disaster response, economic development, aging, air quality, genetic manipulation of seed, culvert sizes, dam relicensing and on and on.
For the first year new electeds are in shock. The second and third year they begin to know some of the vocabulary and perhaps understand one or two issues. It takes about six years to get their feet under them. Then they start forming alliances and networking with other county electeds. I can imagine it is only worse at the state and federal level in complexity.
I’m only talking at the federal level and even if things are such that nothing gets done that wouldn’t bother me at all. :)
Things are only confusing/complex because they can be (because of the current long terms in office), by that I mean if work can’t get done because of certain rules and due to the shorter terms then the rules will get changed (by the new people coming in) so that work can get done.
Right now we have an elite group of people that have been living and breathing government ever since they got out of college, never having worked a day in the private sector for anything. The point of the amendment was that after two terms go by from the time its enacted we have a whole new group of congress men and women in office. Some will take it seriously some will be corrupt just like those that are in it. But over time with new ones coming in with all those big ideas and the two term’ers out forever (not even as lobbyists) then maybe, just maybe things will get a little better and we’ll have a better representative government.
Plus you have those going out suddenly realizing that working in the government isn’t a lifetime’s work. They get no retirement, no medical, no perks (being hired by any company that works for the government) so they have to make it in the real world just like everyone else. Its not perfect but its better then what we have now.
JB