Term limits
Donald Trump is proposing a constitutional amendment to impose term limits on members of congress. I couldn’t find the specific details for it, but he had apparently endorsed a similar proposal in 2016 where he was pushing for 3 terms for congress (6 years) and 2 terms for senate (12 years).
In general do you support having term limits on the legislative branch? And on the other end of the spectrum, should we have presidential term limits?
Personally I can see arguments for or against. The argument in favor of term limits is that it will help to make sure that certain people don’t become entrenched in our political process. With the lack of term limits, we have people that can dictate our politics for decades. It is argued that this increases insider politics leading to more corruption. Furthermore, we would expect without term limits for our legislative branch to be older, and they might overstay their welcome on both sides. Since incumbency advantage is so powerful, even someone who clearly should retire like Sen Feinstein will stay along for way longer than they should.
The argument against term limits is that by limiting members of congress and senate to a few terms, we are making it so that we will have less experienced politicians that might not know how to get things done. And as people get better at legislating, they might have to either run for a senate seat to keep offering their skills, or run for some other position. Furthermore, in their last term in office they have way more incentive to start looking for their “landing spot” creating a corrupting incentive. Also in the strictest sense of the word, term limits are anti-democratic because they might prevent someone who people wanted to vote for from running again.
Ignoring the practicality of passing a constitutional amendment, would you support the term limits as proposed? Or perhaps different limits?
we can't have term limits. no way this person shouldn't be responsible decisions about the american public.
Actually prefer age limits, rather than term limits. And this should apply right up to the top.
65 is probably a good number for the latest you can start a new term.
Term limits are a no-brainer to me. I find the arguments against it silly, personally.
Id like age and term limits.
I remember in the late 90s/early 2000s we still had a couple of ghouls as high ranking politicians who literally ran on segregationist platforms in the 50s.
Well one thing is for sure that if we did institute term limits that the structures of the house and senate would have to be completely reimagined. Right now, there is a lot of advantage given to being a senior member, which is a big reason why there is such a strong incumbency advantage.
The first objection to term limits (it would lead to congresspeople without enough experience to get anything done, which I find extremely unconvincing in the first place), if it became a problem, could be solved simply by lengthening the limit. It's an argument for longer limits if anything, not an argument for no limit at all.
The corruption angle I don't understand at all, and the anti-democratic angle also strikes me as silly because we already have term limits for other offices (president, governor, etc.).
Maybe someone can explain the corruption angle with an example?
Donald Trump is proposing a constitutional amendment to impose term limits on members of congress. I couldn’t find the specific details for it, but he had apparently endorsed a similar proposal in 2016 where he was pushing for 3 terms for congress (6 years) and 2 terms for senate (12 years).
In general do you support having term limits on the legislative branch? And on the other end of the spectrum, should we have presidential term limits?
Personally I can see arguments for or against. The argumen
Term limits are the kind of topic where it is impossible to find the "right answer". But usually, recently, they get proposed by groups i dislike. In italy they have been proposed by the ultra-populist "movimento 5 stelle" (rightwing for some stuff, leftist for other stuff, trash overall as they pick the worst takes on both side of the spectrum usually).
I can see them for overwhelming executive power in countries like the USA or some other "new continent countries". And usually wonna be dictators have to remove those limits when present to install their autocracy (see Venezuela and others).
But for the legislature... i mean they could be slightly better than no cap but it's a big fuss about something fairly small imho
Well one thing is for sure that if we did institute term limits that the structures of the house and senate would have to be completely reimagined. Right now, there is a lot of advantage given to being a senior member, which is a big reason why there is such a strong incumbency advantage.
One thing people ignore with term limits, withing party structures, is that "party leaders" who hold that position regardless of elections, GAIN POWER as they "own" the seats to be re-assigned after the incumbents reach their limit.
You do not "disentrench" for-life politicians, you just move them from congress to the DNC/RNC.
Like they mention Pelosi as the reason for term limits. Would her power be inferior if instead of sitting in congress herself, she had 5-10 congressmen who she handpicked filling seats she controls in full for decades?
One thing people ignore with term limits, withing party structures, is that "party leaders" who hold that position regardless of elections, GAIN POWER as they "own" the seats to be re-assigned after the incumbents reach their limit.
You do not "disentrench" for-life politicians, you just move them from congress to the DNC/RNC.
Like they mention Pelosi as the reason for term limits. Would her power be inferior if instead of sitting in congress herself, she had 5-10 congressmen who she handpicked fi
this is actually a really great argument that I was thinking of putting into my OP but the problem is that it’s really hard to think of a counterfactual to this. I mean let’s say legislators didn’t have a tendency to do that because somehow the political parties decided to institute preventative measures against that. Or because people didn’t want to be controlled they changed the constitution to prevent this and it was easier to change it because of the term limits…
but yeah I think people just assume political parties would becomes less powerful but end up becoming more powerful due to lack of expertise or owing more favors because it’s harder to get elected.
Donald Trump is proposing a constitutional amendment to impose term limits on members of congress. I couldn’t find the specific details for it, but he had apparently endorsed a similar proposal in 2016 where he was pushing for 3 terms for congress (6 years) and 2 terms for senate (12 years).
In general do you support having term limits on the legislative branch? And on the other end of the spectrum, should we have presidential term limits?
Personally I can see arguments for or against. The argumen
I agree with your assessment.
In a more democratic system, multi party, ranked choice, etc. I would be more reluctant
With a barely democratic system like ours, I would strongly favor.
Many districts and states are pretty much one party. The party will push their preferred candidate through primaries and it becomes extremely hard to remove them in future primaries, and they will only lose the general if there is a photo of them having sex with a horse. So, you have Senators for life like Feinstein or Ole Strum.
Another factor is that, as your legislator gains seniority and power, it becomes +ev to keep voting for them because they have more power to bring home pork projects, or legit projects even. If a military base is closed, it will be somewhere else. So it can be +ev to vote for an inferior candidate. But term limits would mitigate that quite a bit.
I am from a country where parties had immense power for a very long while. Maybe in the USA it's different but it doesn't look like that. A few key party leaders call most shots. From McConnell who decides how to spend money to help republican senate candidates to Obama which 8 years after his last job still has immense influence over democrats
Age and term? Maybe for the senate upper limit to start is 66 and max 3 terms. For the house 70 and 8 terms.
Apply that to the supreme court, the only unelected branch of the government. I've heard 17 years.
Lol on congress agreeing to that, which probably makes it an excellent idea.
0% they''ll amend the constitution.
Age and term? Maybe for the senate upper limit to start is 66 and max 3 terms. For the house 70 and 8 terms.
Apply that to the supreme court, the only unelected branch of the government. I've heard 17 years.
Lol on congress agreeing to that, which probably makes it an excellent idea.
I think if you have term limits then the age limits become less relevant. The age limits should be in lieu of term limits.
I am from a country where parties had immense power for a very long while. Maybe in the USA it's different but it doesn't look like that. A few key party leaders call most shots. From McConnell who decides how to spend money to help republican senate candidates to Obama which 8 years after his last job still has immense influence over democrats
McConnell is still a sitting senator. The day he's out he will have zero power. Obama has some influence, but as far as I know has nothing to do with the DNC.
