Broken Government: Term Limits

We have term limits. They’re called “elections.”

agree

Term limits are a horrible idea. The best remedy for opening things up would be for states to reapportion using an independent panel of un-elected citizens and to stop carving out “Republican districts”, “Democrat districts”, “Hispanic districts”, “African-American districts”, etc. Allowing the inmates to run the asylum by letting politicians draw district boundaries assures perpetual ownership of legislative offices.
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Term limits only serve to give un-elected staffers the power to influence legislation because with the musical chairs effect of members being termed out just when they get things figured out, staff are the only ones with institutional memory and a clear understanding of how things get done. And they inevitably stay on to serve the next person to fill an office, and so on.

I completely agree with all points. The gerrymandering is one of the things that got us into this mess to begin with – you should see what my congressional district looks like on a map. I like my representative, but the district is completely unrepresentative of the area in which I live.
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The staff issue is one that I think most people who think term limits will solve any problems overlook. In fact, it will only make things worse.

She’s so bummed to have gotten the term limits assignment, and I don’t blame her.

LoL. I wasn’t THAT bummed to get the term limits assignment! The history of it was interesting — particularly the colonial debate.
JNS

Thanks for your story, Jay. you rock. I’m with the sentiment to remove bad politicos but allowing the systemic corruption to remain ain’t the answer. (The scotus unlimited funds ruling won’t help either but I digress.) Maybe that’s realistically incurable, so we’ll need more options. I wonder when / if recalling Congresscreatures will be allowed. Nothing’s explicit in the Constitution for or against this; only elections and expulsions are spelled out. Is this a state’s rights issue? I’ve been looking for court cases. Might NJ be the battleground? There’s a case “brewing” with NJ tea party:
http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2010/02/17/2204344.aspx

Commenters:
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Is the 90% incumbency rate of Congress a serious problem for our democratic system, as proponents of the “Congressional Stagnation” theory argue?
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link to “Congressional Stagnation Wikipedia entry”

Congressional stagnation is an American political theory that attempts to explain the high rate of incumbency re-election to the United States House of Representatives. In recent years this rate has been well over 90 per cent, with rarely more than 5-10 incumbents losing their House seats every election cycle. [1] The theory has existed since the 1970s, when political commentators were beginning to notice the trend, [2] with political science author and professor David Mayhew first writing about the “vanishing marginals” theory in 1974. [3]
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The term “congressional stagnation” originates from the theory that Congress has become stagnant through the continuous re-election of the majority of incumbents, preserving the status quo.

Agreed

It’s hard to imagine gerrymandering ever being good, but in Minnesota it might. If the next census shrinks their population Bachmann’s district could be redrawn or eliminated.

Good point about the staff issues, @rk. More than that, your point about gerrymandering is spot on, and add inane ballot access requirements that for some reason R’s and D’s don’t have to follow.

Jay Newton-Small:
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You’re a good soldier.
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If you can make this hot, I will have infinitely more respect for your blogging abilities.

Sounds like we’re back to campaign finance reform and lobbyists

Let us hope not! What a mess that would be, we would be in a cycle of election and recalls. It would never end. There would be no point in an election.

I’m really curious to see if Time and CNN will run a series called “Broken Capitalism.”

I hear you, but given the current perpetual campaigning, maybe it won’t be any worse. JMHO, but I doubt there will be too many successful recalls. Hell, getting current longterm bums thrown out is hard enough.

LOL

The recall process (at least here in California) has been abused for years. People who intiate recalls the majority of the time do so for idealogical reasons, which was never the intent. Recalls are for malfeasance in office and similarly gross offenses. The very loose interpretations of what constitutes offenses warranting recall generally include: “they aren’t doing what what our side wants”; “they’re rude”; “they’re in the pocket of____(of course with no proof to offer)”, etc.
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As was stated earlier, ideally, term limits already exist…they’re called “elections”. That being said, changing the way districts are drawn would help a great deal. If there were no “safe” districts it might also encourage more legislating from the middle, i.e. “bi-partisanship”.

deconstrictiva, Redistricting doesn’t have to be gerrymandering. In PA they are saying that John Murtha’s seat will likely be the one lost in the next redistricting. Wonder if that would be the case if he had not died. But I digress – my congressional district includes my suburban township, but not the ones on either side of me, and stretches a long finger into the city to include some districts in Philadelphia. It seems that last time my township couldn’t be counted on to vote Republican, so they moved us rebels into a district with a lot of the city that wouldn’t vote Republican in any case. That was an effort to keep more of my county Republican. It failed, but it means that groups that send me e-mails asking me to support one candidate or another almost always assume I am in another district.
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Way more than you wanted to know, but I would really love to have a non-partisan redraw of districts after the next census.

stuart,

As much as I understand “throw the bums out!”, I don’t think the high incumbency rate is a threat to our democratic republic. I noted in Jay’s article that it did not seem an issue until the 20th century, but I seem to remember from reading history that some senators seemed like they were in office for decades.

I think the biggest problems are gerrymandering, and campaign financing. Politicians spend so much time raising money to run for office, they have no idea what the common person thinks. They have to meet with donors, who now have the access that John and Jane Doe never have. It is all about money and access and I don’t think term limits really addresses the problem.

As kevin said, we already have term limits, they are called elections. And no one is immune to defeat, just ask some former Democratic congressional leaders.

Unfortunately they only work as well as our campaign finance laws.

All pure systems are inherently flawed, and the closer you get to a pure system, the more you incorporate rather than compensate those inherent flaws. America has slowly gotten towards purer Capitalism which, at its purest form, actually kills competition in favor of power.
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So it’s not really that capitalism is “broken”, it’s that it never really worked properly. It’s the economy that’s broken and the economic psyche that favors a more pure Capitalist system – fed, of course, by Narcissistic Capitalists who pretend to be laymen using fear of pure Communism (which is equally flawed) to discredit a compensated variation (Socialism) to discredit any attempts to compensate for the inherent flaws of Capitalism.

Serious suggestion: What about a mandatory retirement age + term limits?
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Such as:
-You may serve the longer of:
a) 6 terms in the House
b) 2 Terms in the Senate
c) until age 65 (if you have already served 12 years in Congress as a result of a+b)
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Here in Michigan, our legislature is gridlocked because of ridiculously short 2-term limits. Too many N00bs.
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However, seniority rules, esp in the US Senate, give excessive power to lifers.
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Couldn’t a term limit / age out hybrid be a solution?

forgotten,
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Would it be a stretch you summarize you by saying:
“In pure form, they ALL suck in some way, so you have to compensate for the more sucky properties in some way.”

“Would it be a stretch you summarize you by saying:”
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I’m not sure I understand what I’m being asked.

I guess that my point is that this sort of thing by CNN serves to enhance public acceptance of conservative frames in a really unbalanced and unacknowledged way, albeit unintentionally.
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Since the words “Broken Capitalism” are suggestive of ideas that lie outside of the sphere of legitimate debate, we can’t have a series that looks at what’s wrong with our economic system,and so we don’t get a week-long chance to examine it, and determine how well it does or doesn’t comport with our goals as a nation. Effectively, it means a denial of an entire class of problems to solve, merely because the words are loaded with the possibility of an alternative that viewers aren’t allowed to know and judge the value of for themselves. In other words, if they said “Broken Capitalism,” that might imply Communism, and it could be interpreted to mean a suggestion of that horrible alternative. It doesn’t matter that another implication might be to fix Capitalism, because the idea that Capitalism can be broken –and might need the hand of the democratically elected state to set it right– is still loaded with alternatives.
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“Broken Government,” however, allows them to escape that trap, but only allows their viewers access to the idea that government is responsible for the nation’s woes, not the economic system as it is, i.e. “Broken Capitalism.”

…Ivy, I understand the feeling about district lines. My city is a blue island in a red sea of suburbs / rapidly growing rurals. The city is split just enough to keep the districts mostly red; mine’s blue only from last rep’s retirement and ‘08 election had a close recount. Literally across the street from my place is an upper-class R suburb I call “Wisteria Lane”: parts of it mimic “Desperate Housewives” (and that’s where the former House rep now lives). My neighborhood is highly diverse across all groups; Wisteria Lane is lily white and all-wealthy. Voting day is always entertaining; my area features dfh’s, college rebels, blue collars, and Che Guevera wannabes while the other majority “half” has people dressing (and acting) like Bree, Orson, Lynette, and Susan. I’ll look forward to any distr. redraws; it can’t get worse.

I won’t repeat my arguments about term limits as they are posted above. Now, AGE limits are, in my view, an equally horrible idea. Like term limits, they are arbitrary. Why 65 and not 55? Once upon a time, 65 seemed to be a wizened age attained by only a few. Take it from this 60 year-old, I won’t be ready to go out to pasture in five years, or even fifteen (my father still goes to work every day…he’ll be 80 in August).
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You’ve heard the new conventional wisdom on aging that 50 is the new 40, etc.? There is truth in it. No matter what age you might pick to be the “right” age to forcibly retire someone, given time the notion will seem quaint, if not downright discriminatory.

…can we use a “time out” for some senators? Make Lieberman sit in the corner sucking his thumb for a couple of years?

My Grandma well into her 80s is a very intelligent and capable woman who’s still got a very grounded understanding of the world. My father-in-law at retirement age is senile and his wife who’s a decade younger isn’t far behind (or even ahead, IMO).

Eliminating “safe” districts might also eliminate the absurdity of sitting Representatives carpet-bagging into a district newly carved out to benefit their party after being effectively un-elected by a similar carve-out of their home district to benefit the OTHER party.

forgottenlord-
As was your intent (I hope) your illustration serves to prove my point that the age thing is arbitrary and would not be regarded well by many.

If voters could hold their representatives accountable for failing to govern responsibly, we wouldn’t even be having these conversations about creating artificial means for indiscriminate turnover. They can’t because: 1) vast numbers of them no longer understand what governing responsibly means and 2) vast numbers no longer understand what their representatives are doing, in both cases because they are being constantly lied to by Republicans with no corrective in the corporate press. Instituting term limits would be a final, tacit admission that we are no longer capable, as a people, of democratic government (too dumb to thrive, some would say). We have met the enemy…

I asked if the incumbency rate was a problem for our democracy, and here’s what I mean to answer:
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Given the 90% re-election rate, one of two things must be the case
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1) our elected representatives are doing such a superlative job that the people wish them to continue indefinitely
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or
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2) our system of democratic representation isn’t working properly
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If everyone agrees that the government is doing a fabulous job worthy of perpetual tenure, then there isn’t a problem.
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If nobody’s satisfied with the results, then there might be a problem.

Actually, gerrymandering has shown little evidence in affecting competitiveness of elections in Congress or state legislatures. This blog post (http://www.themonkeycage.org/2009/02/dont_blame_gerrymandering.html) has two links to research supporting this idea. I suspect apathy and money to be the two biggest culprits for low turn over.

We are constantly reminded that polls show dismal approval ratings for Congress as a whole, but when asked how they feel about THEIR Congressional representatives, the response is overwhelmingly favorable. One of the reasons for the different structures in the two Congressional bodies is the belief (rightly or wrongly) that a Senate that is less beholden to specific local constituencies will take a more global view, whereas members of the House will be more inclined to “bring home the bacon” and be more beholden to local concerns. So long as that remains the case, it’s hard to see how much will change, except as it relates to the artificial boundaries propogated by gerrymandering.

Well, I’m 29 and I work for with a bunch of people in their mid-50′s to late-60′s. They are mostly a group of expensive , cranky, obstinate, and incompetent coasters. I say make the age limit 50.

“Actually, gerrymandering has shown little evidence in affecting competitiveness of elections in Congress or state legislatures.”
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I have news for you: Those “studies” are a joke. In election after election in California the real races are in the primaries of the parties who hold the majority in each district. If it didn’t work gerrymandering would have been dispensed with a long time ago. The people who pay for those studies have a vested interest in the status quo.

“Well, I’m 29 and I work for with a bunch of people in their mid-50′s to late-60′s. They are mostly a group of expensive , cranky, obstinate, and incompetent coasters.”
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So I take it you work in government?

I have news for you: Those “studies” are a joke.

Riiiiiight, because Harvard and UC Berkeley are “shills” for the vast right-wing conspiracy. Did you even bother to look at them?

I know we’re constantly reminded of these things, but, like we were constantly reminded for a period of Saddam’s weapons of mass destruction programs, it’s best to do our homework.
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Please provide links and/or quote to sources, so that we may examine the context of these (I concede, ubiquitous) claims.

No, I work for a defense contractor as a software engineer. I started five years ago after I finished up my master’s degree. I’m one of the few people under 35 that haven’t left and I’m quitting next week to go work for General Electric. The young guys don’t want to work for people/companies who haven’t bothered staying current. They want to do the same thing over and over again. If the median age of Congress was closer to 40 would we see a noticeable difference? I don’t know.

So, I take it you work at a job?

“Did you even bother to look at them?”
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Yes. And, they’re still a joke.

Just a little joke. No sense of humor?

R-kirk, there’s not much humor around here unless you count pointing at the other side and poo-flinging. kbang and sacred are notable exceptions. I miss pirate wench and dunedweller; they were funny.

Term limits only serve to give un-elected staffers the power to influence legislation because with the musical chairs effect of members being termed out just when they get things figured out, staff are the only ones with institutional memory and a clear understanding of how things get done. And they inevitably stay on to serve the next person to fill an office, and so on.

You are assuming that term limits means “musical chairs”.
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You can set term limits to three terms in the Senate if you wanted. That’s 18 years. You could set a much lower one in the House since the House is much less dependent on seniority. Do you really think it takes 18 years to “figure things out”?

Folks:
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Thanks for all the replies. Three more cents:
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re: SZ: Stagnation. I believe that this is a valid argument. Even more so now that corporations will be able to invest vast sums of money to keep their congress critters in office.Incumbency versus inexperience; it’s a trade-off.
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re: RK: Age. 65? 55? 75? Take your pick. Please note that what I’m proposing is the *longer* period of time…
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So: If you get elected at age 35, you get to serve until age 65, and then you’re out.
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However, if you decide to run at age 70, you can still serve a max of 12 years in the house and 12 years in the Senate, all the way to 94!
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Question re: Terms; 4 years has proven to be too short a period of time in Michigan. Are there states which have found a better mix of experience and new blood? 8? 12? 16 years? thx

No offense taken. Was just lamenting working for senior citizens. =P

Agree.

Yes. And, they’re still a joke.

I’m not trying to be a pain here, but what in them made them a joke?

Aye, Decon, I be missin’ the Wench verily!
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‘Twas an awesome sendoff we ‘ad fer her September last, ’twas it not?
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An’ t’anks fer the shout-out on 9.10!
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Arrrrg!

The reason that “just vote for someone else” is not a valid solution to the problems cited by people clamoring for term limits, is the same reason that “just vote for someone else” is not a valid solution to the problems cited by people clamoring for third-parties.

Of course the party currently holding a seat is going to run their incumbent. So in the election, your choices are the incumbent that you voted for last time, or the crazy guy from the other party that you hate. You don’t get to even consider as an option another member of the incumbent party who you may like better. (I of course speak in generalities; occasionally “primarying” an incumbent works, but it is a rare occurrence.)

The “incumbency problem” and the “third-party problem” are the same problem: plurality voting is prone to spoilers in every election with more than two candidates, even if those extra candidates get only a paltry number of votes. Hence, we have just two major parties, and hence, the incumbent party will always run the incumbent candidate.

The problem is the same, so the solution is the same: a spoiler-free election method. Approval voting and score voting are these methods. rangevoting.org has more information.

Interesting, thank you.

hotbbq: You want the congress to be run by these Generation Xrs?
Bachmann
Flake
Hunter Jr
Putnam
Diaz Balart
Bean
Schock
McHenry
Shuler
Cantor
Just some of the under 50 stellar legislators.

de: I understand we need some way of pruging our government of the worst representatives. But, please look what recall did for California. It gave us Shwarznegger who has been a very poor Governor. Should we then have recalled him?
As random stated, recall threats have been abused in California. They are used for ideological differences.
California tem limits are a joke. Pols go from one elected position to another, taking their special interests with them. Staff stays and enjoys the attention of special interests, bringing that attention to the next elected official.
Unless you have real campaign reform, do away with initiative abuse, and have control of redistricting the corruption will continue.
California is a perfect example. It is totally dysfunctional. The Dems have a huge majority but also have huge corruption. Reps are so far to the right Atilla the Hun would feel uncomfortable. Once they are termed they will go on to another elected position, go to work for a lobbyist, and their staffs will tutor the next office holder. Initiatives on taxes have made it impossible to raise revenue. It is a mess.

I’ve been mulling over the thought of “no consecutive terms”. A few countries have this for Presidential elections to debatable results. This somewhat solves the “me again” problem as a fresh face gets into the race plus you don’t necessarily lose the good elder statesmen. The problems of people having to run home to fundraise every weekend disappear because they can do that when it’s their turn back home. Yeah, there’s still a lot of problems (2 guys just leapfrogging one another into the seat, staff power, puppet seats, etc), but it might actually help remove some of the bigger hurdles out there.

hotbbq: You want the congress to be run by these Generation Xrs?

No, but then again, I’m not a Republican.

“The “incumbency problem” and the “third-party problem” are the same problem: plurality voting is prone to spoilers in every election with more than two candidates…”
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But you just said that the “incumbency problem” was that there are only two candidates and that it is “rare” that a third candidate, a “spoiler”, challenges either of them.

“Broken Government,” however, allows them to escape that trap, but only allows their viewers access to the idea that government is responsible for the nation’s woes, not the economic system as it is, i.e. “Broken Capitalism.”
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Doesn’t it also help explain why people disapprove of the Congress as a whole while approving of their own representative?

My pastor talked about living in Mississippi under John Stennis. He said the man was past senility but still “representin’”. Makes Robert Byrd a greenhorn almost. Their pensions (pd for by you and me, thx CNN) are darned good too. Why leave?

hotbbq: 2 of those Generation Xers I listed are Dems, Bean and Shuler. They are just as dimwitted as the Reps. I guess what I am saying, old people can be cantankerous, slow witted, but so can younger people by cracky.

“But you just said that the “incumbency problem” was that there are only two candidates and that it is “rare” that a third candidate, a “spoiler”, challenges either of them.”

You’re confused on the order of operations. Because a third candidate is often a spoiler, therefore there are only two major parties and the incumbent party will always run only the incumbent candidate. The spoiler problem causes the incumbency and the third party problems. Running a “spoiler” isn’t a good thing! (Unless you’re just trying to hold one party hostage, and are willing to suffer the consequences when your least-favorite candidate wins.)

The incumbent party won’t nominate a second candidate, because they know (or fear) that doing so will cause both of their candidates, the incumbent and the up-and-comer, to lose to the dreaded “other party”. This fear exist because of the “spoiler problem” of plurality.

Third parties find themselves in the same strategic catch-22, wherein if they do not run a candidate (analogous to a major party not running a second candidate), nothing changes, but if they do run a candidate, they run the risk of spoiling the election, in which they lose and their nearest ideological partner among the two major parties also loses, because they “stole” votes from them; and as a result, the dreaded “other party” (which both groups despise) wins.

OK, the system is interesting, though I’m not sure how you get it could work in a country that was nearly destroyed by a butterfly ballot. Anyway, good luck with that.
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The theory on the cause-and-effect of “spoilers” still seems weak to me. Money, seniority and network-connections seem like just as likely reasons to not try to replace your own party’s incumbent and I can think of a few reasons not to run multiple candidates as the challenging party, even besides probably splitting your own vote. YMMV.
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Really interesting point about third parties, I hadn’t thought of it from that angle (probably too preoccupied screaming “don’t run Ralph!” in my head). From Ralph’s point of view, it must really suck to know that the only consequence of running would be to elect a Republican. Sucks for us too. Thanks a lot for pointing that out. No, really.

Sorry, forgotten, that first line should have said:
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“Would it be a stretch TO summarize you by saying:”
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Seems like you’re saying all of the economic systems suck in some way in PURE form. To make them work, they ALL need a mod or two.
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Hope it makes more sense now.

What I don’t get about this gerrymandering thing is that gerrymandering is illegal! It was deemed so in Baker v. Carr (1962), however slippery politicians have managed to get around the law since the 60′s.
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Clearly the use of gerrymandering raises serious questions about the value of an individuals vote. Something needs to be done to force states to redistrict in a meaningful and useful way.
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Look at Murthas’ old seat in the Pennsylvania 12th Congressional District. It actually has a hole, yes a hole, right in the middle of it! It also snakes all over the place from SW PA towards the center. Clearly this district was drawn for one and only one purpose; to make sure that the party that controlled it couldn’t lose. Why else would it literally have a hole in the middle of it? What’s wrong with the people who live in the hole?
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Could it possibly be that the people there don’t tend to vote the way the party that generally wins in the 12th likes? (The 12th is a heavily Democratic district, but Republicans are also guilty of gerrymandering elsewhere in the U.S.)

We need term limits. For one thing, incumbents have to many advantages (like tax payer funded direct mailing privileges) and, more importantly, the need for new blood and new ideas. Not to mention ending the incubent’s corrupt connections with lobbyists corporate campaign contributors. Senators in office for 40 – 50 years?! You must be kidding me! 12 years is enough for any one person. Give someone else a shot at it!