Term limits for congress?
I see no cons. The one normally brought up is that seniority in Congress is such an important factor but that would "go away". Pros are that corruption would be lessened, elections would interfere less with work, there would be a constant influx of new ideas, representatives would be more in touch with their constituents, costs would be lessened (no expectation of "retirement monies"), increased areas of expertise (ie, with more demand, people from under-represented occupations would be tapped, ie, less lawyers), pork would be harder to come by, and it goes on and on.
Should there be a term limit for serving in Congress?
Very bad idea. This would immediately grant far more power to organized interest groups (a.k.a. lobbyists) -- who, unlike elected officials, are not subject to the campaign finance laws that limit donations, promote transparency, and otherwise ensure good government.Here's how it works now. There are three main groups of people who together make laws in Washington:(1) elected Members of Congress -- partisan; elected; accountable to voters(2) staffers -- partisan; politically appointed by their bosses; accountable to voters vicariously through their bosses(3) organized interest groups (N.R.A., Planned Parenthood, labor unions, environmental groups, etc.) -- issue-oriented (which sometimes but not always means partisan); unaccountable to voters; can receive unlimited donations to influence public policyNow imagine every Member of Congress is limited at, say, three terms. That's just six years. It takes a long time to learn anything useful about policy -- let alone about the political realities that a Member must master in order to make policy. It takes a lot more than six years. This is why you rarely see junior Members of Congress pass any meaningful legislation.If you limit Members' tenure, here's what will happen:(1) by reducing the time they have to learn how to do their jobs, you reduce how much they know about how the system works.(2) but somebody still has to be consulted about how the policy and politics work.(3) the only people left with this knowledge will be the organized interest groups.(4) so Members will do the only thing that they can do: ask the lobbyists for help even more than they do now. Instead of merely consulting with lobbyists, Members will be forced to outsource virtually all of the process of writing legislation to those same lobbyists.
Why can't there be term limits for Congress?
There can be. You just need to amend the U.S. Constitution. But in order to do that, you need to get the support of 2/3 of the members of Congress (as a first step . . . ) and many of them will find that this does not serve their own self-interest.But consider this: rather than a blanket term limit for members of Congress, wouldn’t it be better if members of Congress were simply made accountable for their actions such that, if they were bad at their job and didn’t serve their constituents, they would not be re-elected, and if they did, they would be? After all, the problem is not that qualified, competent, principled politicians keep getting re-elected, it’s that corrupt, incompetent ones do.The reason corrupt, unprincipled incompetent politicians keep getting elected to term after term is that they have no real competition for their seats, because of partisan Gerrymandering. Both major parties have been doing this for about two centuries. Electoral districts are drawn by the party in power within each state such that the majority of Reps are virtually assured of re-election, regardless of how bad a job they do.There is a lot of momentum afoot to change this, and make politicians actually accountable for their job performance come re-election time. This would have the effect of limiting the number of terms served by Reps overall, but specifically it would limit the number of terms served by those reps who do a lousy job.This is something that needs to be addressed on a state-by-state level. I live in PA, where proponents of reform are promoting legislation calling for a change to the PA Constitution, such that electoral districts are drawn up by independent citizen commissions, not by incumbent politicians. It’s SB 22 . Not surprisingly, it’s being opposed by reps of both parties who would probably lose their jobs, if their seats were actually competitive.Here in PA, the group pushing for this reform is Fair Districts PA There is probably an analogous chapter pushing for similar legislation in your state.
Is there a middle ground solution between term limits for congress and the system we have now?
Term limits have nothing to do with the problems the U.S. has now. Voters can always vote for a new representative if they do not like what the current one is doing. Throwing out an office holder who is doing a good job for a number of years is stupid, it destroys the “institutional” memory of an elected body and will leave you with a bunch of short timers who are captive to the pack money and special interests. Knowing their time is limited they will not answer to voters once elected. You can take that to the bank.Would you throw out a heart surgeon with twenty years experience for a guy right out of medical school? In high school, who taught you more, the student teacher or the 20 years of experience English teacher.The problem is very simple with U.S. politics - we have lost the ability to compromise on anything. Each side holds out for it extreme position and nothing gets done. Until that happens - we will be where we are today.
What are the benefits of having lifetime appointments to the United Supreme Court? What problems might such ap?
The idea of lifetime appointment to the high court was that the justices won't be influenced in their cases by having to worry about reappointment. Term limits are in effect they can retire or die that's the term limit. OK like now we have a far left president he will have 8 yrs in office if the justices are term limited then Obama might get a chance to pick the majority of the court if some of the judges die.
What are the benefits of having lifetime appointments to the United States Supreme Court?
What are the benefits of having lifetime appointments to the United States Supreme Court? What problems might such appointments cause? What would be the likely result if Supreme Court justices faced term limits?
In regards to U.S. term limits, you have Donald Trump on one extreme and then John Dingell (D) serving 59 years on the other extreme, would term limits be helpful or not?
Term limits are a terrible idea.I hate Ted Cruz, I mean I really hate him. He has done a disservice to this state and is the cause of many problems including a government shutdown.BUTThe people who elected Ted Cruz would not elect a Nancy Pelosi next if his term ran out. They will elect another idiot like Cruz. The problem is not the length of the term, if Pelosi has to step down you are not going to get a staunch conservative in that seat.The problem is how districts are drawn. If districts were drawn fairly, by a computer, instead of by politicians then we’d have districts where our representatives would have to answer to both sides, not just the carefully selected group that represents extreme views.US politics has become polarized because we let them carve us into camps. This is not about who is in office, it is about who draws the lines. Fix the lines and you don’t need term limits, politicians will vote for everyone, not their select extremists.