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Audacity of Truth
Senator DeMint: Term limits for Congress sounds like a great idea
Via the Washington Times:
Sen. Jim DeMint says Washington politicians are like fruit on the vine: the longer they hang around, the more rotten they get.
The South Carolina Republican – hearkening back to the days of the party’s “Contract with America” – on Tuesday offered a fix to the corrupting influence of “permanent politicians,” introducing an amendment to the Constitution that would limit Senate members to three six-year terms and House members to three two-year terms.
“As long as members have the chance to spend their lives in Washington, their interests will always skew toward spending taxpayer dollars to buy off special interests, covering over corruption in the bureaucracy, fundraising, relationship building among lobbyists, and trading favors for pork – in short, amassing their own power,” said Mr. DeMint, who is running for a second term next year.
Senate leaders and longtime Washington watchdogs said Mr. DeMint’s bill had a zero chance of becoming law, mostly because of a general lack of interest and the high hurdles to amending the Constitution.
There are pros and cons to amending the Constitution to put Congressional term limits in place. The big pro, as DeMint pointed out, is that there are many in Congress who pretty much have guaranteed lifetime seats if they want them – and in some cases those politicos become so entrenched that they become servants to power rather than the people via special interests, “buying votes,” and corruption (Rep. Murtha is a prime example). The two cons, some would suggest, would be that there are those “lifetimers” in DC who do good work term after term – like Rep. Sue Myrick here in NC – who would be termed out, disappointing supporters who might want to keep then in Congress for one more term, possibly more. Not only that, but the argument has been made in the past that term limits are “unconstitutional” because if people are happy with their representatives they should have the option to re-elect them.
What do you think?
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27 Responses to “Senator DeMint: Term limits for Congress sounds like a great idea”
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it’ll never happen
The pros to term limits far outweigh the cons. Corruption is at the core of our poor government. However, that being said, I agree that it will never happen. Too bad.
I’ll bet that there are a boatload of “Murtha fans” and “Barney Frank fans” and “Nancy Pelosi fans” who would express the same con. Effectiveness in Congress is in the eye of the beholder (or party affiliation) and we would be back to where we are now, square one.
We have term limits for the president (thank God), and it makes sense that the same should be applied to Congress. But as Bill Glass & Ruth expressed above, it’ll never happen. Just like tort reform in the health bill, just like keeping themselves from having to participate in PelosiCare/ObamaCare, there are enough self-serving politicians in Congress to vote down anything that threatens their perks and power.
I’ve been on the “con” side of this argument for a long time, both for the reasons you mention, ST, and another: terming out legislators makes unelected staff even more powerful, because they’re the ones with the institutional memory – how things get done. They potentially have vast influence over the large classes of freshmen this would regularly produce.
But that’s a hypothetical, however valid a speculation it may be. The reality we’re dealing with is that we have a Congress full of entrenched professionals operating in their own interests and those of their big donors, not “the people.” For that reason, and because of the severity of the problem, I support this amendment.
And if it passes a Democratic congress, I’ll be checking the skies for flying pigs.
I personally believe in a limit on “consecutive terms” .. 12 years .. home to reconnect .. repeat
The people have the right to elect their chosen representatives. Term limits eliminate that right. This is a matter of both individual rights and states’ rights. You’re wrong on this one, DeMint.
I think they are bad ideas.
The reasons why are well documented and it is a long list.
The facts are, people stay in office a long time because the people they represent keep re-electing them.
I’ve got an even better idea: put term limits on ANYBODY WHO WORKS INSIDE THE BELTWAY. That means no lifetime tenures for bureaucrats, lobbyists, policy wonks, etc.
Better yet, make sure everybody who is term-limited gets shipped out to places like Iowa, Idaho, Alabama, Illinois, and North Dakota–that’ll return’em to reality, won’t it?
I’ve always opposed term limits. I think a much better solution is to abolish congressional pensions and other perks they have after leaving office. Then they will term limit themselves.
Congress should consist of citizen legislators who serve the public (Public servants? What a novel idea.) for a time and then return to private life and live under the laws they enacted while in office.
As long as elected officials can profit for a lifetime simply by being elected to office, Congressman or Senator will be a title of nobility.
I’m all for term limits. If you feel your reps. are doing what they were elected to do,they could always run for the other office. Then there are all the offices at state level. If they really want to stay involved hell they could become community organizers…..
Power just passes to the highly trained staffers.
How many years has HE been stuffing his pockets with our money?!?!?!
One other problem with this amendment just occurred to me: In California, we have a term-limited legislature, but it’s still unresponsive and out of touch with the people. (Heck, it’s practically an oligarchy.) The problem is two-fold, and applies to the situation with congress:
1) Gerrymandered congressional districts, what are commonly called here safe seats. The districts are drawn not to represent roughly even numbers of population nor geographic contiguity, but to guarantee there are enough voters of a particular party to keep that seat in the party. (We do the same for the legislature and the House, though state-legislative gerrymandering was recently abolished for the next round) So, a Democrat or Republican termed out is most likely replaced by someone of the same party. Something would have to be done about gerrymandered districts at the Federal level.
2) The public employees unions (and other big donors) still have a lot of influence, because a termed-out legislator will still need their good will (and cash and campaign workers) to pursue a political career after their current office, particularly if they’re running for the next higher office. And someone new will be very tempted to accept their aid, too, since running for office is expensive and complicated.
It’s a quandary, all right.
Term limits are needed. The national parties pick the candidates now, not the voters.
Our experience here in CA is that term limits don’t work. In fact, the evidence strongly argues that it makes things worse. Our state assemblymen, for instance, are limited to two-terms. In their first term, they “go along to get along” and so accomplish nothing. Then in their second term, not worried about getting re-elected and looking for future work, they become completely beholden to special interests.
A better alternative would be to better police gerrymandering to ensure that congressional districts are competitive.
The best choice would be clean up the blatant but legal corruption that our entrenched elected corruptocrats brazenly exploit without betraying any sense of shame.
It would also help a great deal to centralize ALL fund raising and custodying of funds in one closely regulated bank created just for that purpose.
Am all for term limits but would go further than DeMint’s proposal. Limit the senate to six years, and the house to six years.
Sounds like a great idea to me. We need term limits for Congress the same reason we’ve got them for Presidents – when they stay in office too long…they lose touch with the people…and reality.
These guys spend all their time either raising money for their next election or campaigning for their next election…no wonder they never have any time left over to spend working on the people’s business.
“What do you think?”
I’ve been saying it for years…
The Alliance for Bonded Term Limits, Inc., a grassroots, non-profit organization in Pinehurst, NC has just signed its first Congressional candidate, pledging term limits backed by a bond of $250,000 in personal worth. See LINK
See also JC Watts’ endorsement LINK
We are in the process of signing a second Congressional candidate as of this writing, with another in discussion stage, along with a Senatorial challenger. (Note: We never touch the money pledged, which goes to a pre-designated charity, if he reneges.)
Go to our website. Look around. Join us … no cost. Spread our word. Call us, if we can answer questions. We are out to return legislation to We The People.
Respectfully,
Ken Benway
Alliance for Bonded Term Limits, Inc.
Office 910.420.2753
Thank heavens the political class has never successfully learned how to gerrymander a state.
One of the biggest problems I have with the term-limits idea is that everyone wants to term-limit the OTHER guy’s candidate. Simple fact is, if you don’t like the reps that Massachusetts keeps sending, you probably don’t agree with most of the people in Massachusetts.
And needless to say, I am FIRMLY against a good guy term-limiting himself, ensuring that the real scum keep the good congressional jobs like the committee chairs.
Actually you do not need a Constitutional Amendment to enact term limits. Each individual state could enact term limit laws. But the only way I will agree to term limits is if there is NO retirement incentive ever. Otherwise you are going to have 10s of 1000s of these guys sitting on their fat asses collecting a pension for doing nothing. – Lorica
It will never happen. Corruption is way too widespread in D.C. (or Sacramento, Salem, Olympia, Boise, etc. – choose your state) for any effective way to eliminate it by other than voting the grubs out. But remember, it’s always the other guy’s “grub”, not yours.
Increase their pay to say $300,000/yr., and eliminate any acceptance of “gifts” during the time from election to leaving office (including meals, even a Big Mac), with ANY violation of such cause for immediate removal from office.
Eliminate perks after office, especially retirement. Allow insurances during time in office, but that is eliminated at term’s end, without even a COBRA.
And eliminate franking privileges except to the media. If what they say in their pompous “newsletters” is worth hearing or reading, the media can get it out.
And as for gerrymandering, nothing will ever eliminate that. Whoever’s in power each time redistricting is done will continue to control that process.
Last, but certainly not least, power corrupts. Absolute power (like being a Kennedy in MA) corrupts absolutely. As proof, I give you the leadership of both parties in D.C.
I heartily agree with Carlos and Steve above….career politicians have feathered their own nests for too long. They should not have the advantage of insurances and pensions after they have served. They should be citizen servants not sacred cows.
Gerrymandering is always a temporary condition and always reversible. It should be considered spoils of the election victory by the incumbent. They could lengthen the amount of time it takes to do the dirty deed just to make it inconvenient.
They really should take away the platinum parachutes of these pampered politicos. When your out, your out. period.
I think the best term limit is an educated constituency. WE NEED TO BE MORE INVOLVED in the political scene, not just when it’s election time, but day-to-day mundane ways. Drop a line to your congressman/woman. Send them a fax. Drop by their office. Do whatever it takes to let them know you are looking over their shoulder…sunshine does a lot to disinfect.
Lorica:
I disagree. I believe that was tried here in California and the SCOTUS knocked it down. The problem is that the Congress is defined by the federal constitution – and that includes terms of office. States have no authority to alter provisions of the federal constitution, other than by calling for a convention on a proposed amendment.
Sister, I’ll see your Sue Myrick and raise you 2 Demints(and throw in that jackleg Graham to boot).
But believe it or not Demint catches crap locally, too. You know, the people with their hands out asking,”where’s mine”.
Anthony, that is length of terms, not number of terms. There is no provision in the Constitution that states how many terms a Rep or Sen can have, so my proposal doesn’t change the Constitution in anyway, and the SCOTUS should have no jurisdiction over this law. The 10th amendment clearly says that whatever the Constitution doesn’t define is left to the states, and since there is no defination regarding number of terms, a state should be able to limit their representation. – Lorica