Clear, Simple and Wrong - Term Limits

[chris_gerrib]

Every so often, people who are irritated at the dysfunction of Washington DC and/or their local statehouse propose term limits on elected officials. This is, in my view, a clear, simple and wrong solution.

The fact of the matter is that running government is a skill, just like repairing cars or computers. It takes time to figure out how to do it. Term limits mean that, as soon as Joe or Jane Legislator figures out how to do something, they're gone. So instead of having the needed experience, they have to rely on lobbyists and professional staffers to get stuff done.

There is a real solution to dysfunction, namely, vote out dysfunctional officials and vote in functional ones. That requires voters accepting compromise, deal-making and cooperation. There is no silver bullet.

Comments

Congressional Pay

[karl henderson (from livejournal.com)]

Along with that generally goes cutting their pay.
That's when I suggest raising it instead.

[baron-waste.livejournal.com]

Unless you're wanting actual “representative government,” instead of a permanent insulated scofflaw oligarchy.

(http://i.imgur.com/cuMhlkn.jpg)


In which case you want to make sure your representatives are recent arrivals who know they'll be going back to face their neighbors.

This is how America was supposed to be governed, and was:  By the people's representatives, chosen from among the people, not from an insulated elite nomenklatura who don't know anyone outside their little bubble and don't wish to.

Update:  Look, for example, at the Wikipedia entry on John Kerry.  This guy comes from a different country, a different world than most Americans could even imagine - and that's the world that produces the permanent incumbents of House and Senate.  In truth, they don't represent us.

[chris-gerrib.livejournal.com]

Bollocks, as our British friends would say. The people who wrote the Constitution were professional politicians. They were the financial and educational elite of American society. What they wanted was for their rule to be safe from the people who launched Shay's Rebellion. (Look that bit of history up.)

Double bollocks. The Founders also wanted a horse that got 10 miles to a cup of oats. Times have changed - the question should be what's right for us, not what was right 250 years ago.