I’ve never liked term limits. Term limits means someone that doesn’t live in my district doesn’t like who the people in my district elected but that someone won’t move into my district to vote against him/her.
The best term limit tool is at the ballot box by the people that do the voting.
You said — “The best term limit tool is at the ballot box by the people that do the voting.”
Yep, that’s the one that the “people” must enforce, according to how the person is representing them. If he is doing well, he should stay in office; if not, then remove him.
Of course, that puts a lot of responsibility on the people... and that’s another problem.... :-)
You a right! Term limits is a bad idea. It just encourages the worst kind of Gerrymandering in order to create “super-safe” districts for the political parties. A better solution would be to limit the total number of years that one can serve in any elected or appointed office or series of offices (except in the judiciary) to 24 years. This would provide for a reasonable career yet ensure a faster turn-over. Someone with presidential aim would have to be in position to do so within at least 20 years in order to serve there one term. Were they able to be elected president from outside the government they still would fall under the current presidential 2-term requirement.
Agreed on all counts. Term limits will not turn dishonest people into good people. The State of SD instituted term limits and found that all it did was hinder the work of the legislature because of the inexperience of the new legislators, and now the very conservative individual that spearheaded the fight for term limits, is very sorry that it passed.
Besides, is everyone else in your congressional district so mentally retarded that there is no one who could do just as good a job as the incumbent retard?
Seriously, the issue is careerism, people who go to Washington, become part of the Washingtonian class and never leave until they retire with a fat pile of boodle under their arms. Now we are starting to see the Washingtonian class become an hereditary class - see Caroline Kennedy's attempt to capture the New York Senate seat on the basis of her ancestry and Ted Kennedy's behind-the-scenes attempt to will his own senate seat to his wife. This will only get worse - and it will get worse fast.
Many things are in the Constitution to forbid the people from doing what they want and corrupting the Republic. Term limits would be one more.
Not that it will ever happen. Maybe a thousand years from now some people trying to set up a stable republic will learn from our (and the founders) mistakes, and include term limits. Note to those people if they happen to read this: term limits, and no retirement pensions to elected officials. If they want retirement security let them retire to private life and earn it themselves, like their constituents have to.
And there is another issue of professional politicians. I believe citizen-legislators would be preferable. Politics should be a part of people's lives, not their whole lives. And professional politicians whose whole lives are politics apparently believe that all of life is politics. Bah!