It usually takes about a decade in DC for a “good guy” to go bad.
So We need term limits! I propose
1. Senate: 2 terms 12 years then must sit out a full Senate term before they can return.
2. House: 5 Terms 10 years then must sit out 3 House terms (6 years) before they can return.
They also need to go home! ( I would love to have a 50-100 miles exclusion zone for politicians who have to “sit out”! But that’s not possible!)
They need to go home and if they feel they have to continue to be “professional politicians”. Run for governor, county commissioner, mayor, actually try a private sector job! But above all GO HOME!
Decade ? No. 6 years is usually the curdling point for the good guys. Some last longer, some don’t even last a year.
Problem, however, is that term limits for just the elected officials isn’t a panacea. The government workers (protected by unions and Civil Service, a good idea that turned rotten), the staffers and behind-the-scenes people are just as bad if not more so. A revolving door of elected officials would reduce them to simple puppets.
In places like California, where term limits was enacted in the ‘90s to run out tyrants like King Willie Brown, it only worked to the benefit of the GOP for all of a year or two and with the 1996 elections, it was all over for responsible governance and fresh faces and ideas. A revolving door of puppets for powerful big gubmint interest groups that rubber stamp whatever they want, and corrupt as hell. Remove one and they’re replaced with another. It’s become a feudal third world $hithole as a result.