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75% Prefer Term Limits - Do you?

Do you support defined term limits?

  • Total voters
    45
No. This tends to be one of those "look at me! I'm so populist! I hate politician!" things I deplore. I tend to oppose term limits simply because of the caliber of their supporters.
 
Yup.


3 House, 2 Senate, 2 Pres, and a 24 yr lifetime total limit for any and all elective offices higher than "mayor".

I'd also like to see a required 4 year waiting period between "having held one office" and "running for a new one".

Our professional politicial class has proven itself a dismal failure.
 
Absolutely not. I prefer to not have my choices to represent me arbitrarily limited.
 
No. I don't think term limits will fix the problems we have with congress. It limits the choices of the people, and ensures the final term of the politician will be one where they are not beholden to their constituents. And even if term limits prevented the people from electing the same specific failed politicians over and over, it wouldn't prevent them from electing people just like them, which is what I feel they would inevitably end up doing.
 
Dragonfly said:
Throw the bums out: 75 percent back Congress term limits | The Ticket - Yahoo! News

Do you support defined term limits?
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They have limitted terms now; 2 years in the House and 6 years in the Senate. If term limits means a maximum number of terms then no. To assert that any party cannot run the best candidate, incumbent or not is insane. I concur that seniority should not be used to assign congressional committee or leadership roles, yet oppose having any such limits on total time in office. Some in congress are indeed loons and their constituents surely deserve better, yet those voters must remain free to choose their leaders. Perhaps it is odd that they do not simply enforce this via their own political parties, if that is really what they desire. It would be quite easy for the demorat or republicant party to do this, simply deny second or third term DNC/RNC funding to any incumbent. Do we realty want representation by those that have nothing to loose by "doing their own thing"?
 
ttwtt78640 said:
It would be quite easy for the demorat or republicant party to do this, simply deny second or third term DNC/RNC funding to any incumbent.
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Now I could get behind this, if it were voluntary on the part of the Parties. If they could come to a gentleman's agreement on the subject - fat chance - and create a binding compact between them to deny funding to any Congressional candidate after their first term, giving them a chance to sink or swim on their own... that could make things interesting.
 
Goshin said:
Yup.


3 House, 2 Senate, 2 Pres, and a 24 yr lifetime total limit for any and all elective offices higher than "mayor".

I'd also like to see a required 4 year waiting period between "having held one office" and "running for a new one".

Our professional politicial class has proven itself a dismal failure.
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I do not agree with you (in part because your formula allows Senators to serve twice as long as Congressmen) but Virginia seems to have done well enough not allowing any person to serve two successive terms as governor which really keeps the Senate seats mixed up pretty well, so I might would be willing to consider a mandatory gap of some sort--I am just not sure where it would be best placed.
 
Einzige said:
Now I could get behind this, if it were voluntary on the part of the Parties. If they could come to a gentleman's agreement on the subject - fat chance - and create a binding compact between them to deny funding to any Congressional candidate after their first term, giving them a chance to sink or swim on their own... that could make things interesting.
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I suspect that most in favor of these limits are simply frustrated that either their own party or, much more likely, the other party, has a loon in office that they wish to oust but cannot do so. ;)
 
Dragonfly said:
Throw the bums out: 75 percent back Congress term limits | The Ticket - Yahoo! News




Do you support defined term limits?
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Absolutely not. I think career politicians is the worst idea on the planet. The system was designed to be for the people, by the people. Our politicians should be average citizens who temporarily serve their country. Not the rich, career assholes they are now.

radcen said:
Confirms my theory that at least 75% of the general population are idiots.
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So anyone who opposes career politicians is an idiot? It's that very same reason that our politicians are more concerned with their careers and playing ball with each other than actually representing their constituents.
 
Goshin said:
Yup.


3 House, 2 Senate, 2 Pres, and a 24 yr lifetime total limit for any and all elective offices higher than "mayor".

I'd also like to see a required 4 year waiting period between "having held one office" and "running for a new one".

Our professional politicial class has proven itself a dismal failure.
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Or a complete success, depending on your definition, of course. ;)
 
jamesrage said:
Not only should there be term limits there should also be a five year waiting period before someone can run for a different office.For example someone who was a senator should wait 5 years before being allowed to run for president,mayor,congressmen, or some other elected or appointed office.
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This is dumb, but especially the mandatory waiting period is absolutely unworkable. It's arbitrary - why five years? Why not three? Or seven? - and doesn't have any sort of a rationale behind it.

Politicians being 'insiders' is actually a good thing, and political 'outsiders' are generally kept outside for a reason. You absolutely want your Representative to have as many contacts as possible, in order to accomplish more for his district. And you want a skilled and connected politician who represents you to advance in the political arena.

It sounds good to say, "grr! meany politician doo-doo heads!". But when it comes to your representation in Congress, would you ever want him to be anything but the most effective, on-the-ball Representative anybody's ever seen? Would you vote to neuter and emasculate him politically?

No, of course not. The only reason you'd ever do so is because you're represented by a member of the other Party, and then you'd only support doing so until your guy got in.

And well you shouldn't. You should want strong representation that commands as many resources as possible. That's logical, and in accord with the design of our competitive system of representation.
 
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Yes, I support term limits for all elected representatives. Two terms, just like the president is limited to. I think it would help keep politicians honest, and not beholden to special interest groups.
 
I'm finding it somewhat amazing that almost everybody unquestionably believes we are living in a time of complete and devastatingly useless governance, yet won't get behind the idea of setting a limit to how long the incompetent boobs can stay in office.

Why is it perfectly fine for the President, but not for others in power?

It is power you know.

Why not limit the amount of power our "leaders" can have?
 
Dragonfly said:
I'm finding it somewhat amazing that almost everybody unquestionably believes we are living in a time of complete and devastatingly useless governance, yet won't get behind the idea of setting a limit to how long the incompetent boobs can stay in office.

Why is it perfectly fine for the President, but not for others in power?

It is power you know.

Why not limit the amount of power our "leaders" can have?
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Simple for me really, I would rather limit the number of times a person can vote in their life---they'll think more carefully about the idiot they are voting for. :)
 
Einzige said:
This is dumb, but especially the mandatory waiting period is absolutely unworkable. It's arbitrary - why five years? Why not three? Or seven? - and doesn't have any sort of a rationale behind it.

Politicians being 'insiders' is actually a good thing, and political 'outsiders' are generally kept outside for a reason. You absolutely want your Representative to have as many contacts as possible, in order to accomplish more for his district. And you want a skilled and connected politician who represents you to advance in the political arena.

It sounds good to say, "grr! meany politician doo-doo heads!". But when it comes to your representation in Congress, would you ever want him to be anything but the most effective, on-the-ball Representative anybody's ever seen? Would you vote to neuter and emasculate him politically?

No, of course not. The only reason you'd ever do so is because you're represented by a member of the other Party, and then you'd only support doing so until your guy got in.

And well you shouldn't. You should want strong representation that commands as many resources as possible. That's logical, and in accord with the design of our competitive system of representation.
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The issue is career politicians have become disconnected from their constituents. They get wrapped up in a powerful, elitist world, where even their own decisions don't effect them much.

For an average, every day citizen who's exercising his short tenure as a politician, he realizes that in 2-4 years he's going to be an average citizen again, and as such, will tend to favor supporting the populace over supporting himself.
 
Dragonfly said:
I'm finding it somewhat amazing that almost everybody unquestionably believes we are living in a time of complete and devastatingly useless governance, yet won't get behind the idea of setting a limit to how long the incompetent boobs can stay in office.
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We aren't. There have been periods of far worse governance in the United States. The 1830s, for instance, when the Jackson appointees were out of office but a strong President hadn't come in to replace them yet. Or the 1920s.

Why not limit the amount of power our "leaders" can have?
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The further down the chain you go, the more counterproductive limiting the power of a politician becomes. It's one thing to limit a President, because his powers are strong to begin with and he has no particular constituency to keep him in check. Your Representative, on the other hand, has a much more immediate link with you; by overly neutralizing his authority, you end up hurting yourself.
 
Oh senseless populism. How I dislike thee.
 
RabidAlpaca said:
The issue is career politicians have become disconnected from their constituents. They get wrapped up in a powerful, elitist world, where even their own decisions don't effect them much.

For an average, every day citizen who's exercising his short tenure as a politician, he realizes that in 2-4 years he's going to be an average citizen again, and as such, will tend to favor supporting the populace over supporting himself.
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If you want to cripple the House of Representatives, maybe I'll be more in favor of that, since if you want to try to placate the masses, that's where you ought to do it. But with the Senate, I prefer some good distance from the masses.
 
RabidAlpaca said:
The issue is career politicians have become disconnected from their constituents. They get wrapped up in a powerful, elitist world, where even their own decisions don't effect them much.

For an average, every day citizen who's exercising his short tenure as a politician, he realizes that in 2-4 years he's going to be an average citizen again, and as such, will tend to favor supporting the populace over supporting himself.
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This idea of the Mr. Smithian, yeoman farmer as citizen-representative is quaint, and it's probably what Jefferson and the like had when they first began imagining what sort of representation the country would have, but it's not tenable in anything but theory.

A Representative is effective on the basis of how well he services his constituency; in particular, in the House, the concern is not - and ought not to be - immediately for the 'national good', but rather all 435 members are, and by design ought to be, more aligned with the basically non-ideological, functional needs of their districts. In order to serve them, he needs to have contacts in the so-called 'political class'; he needs seniority; he needs time to develop a portfolio, a record, to make himself predictable to his constituents. A term limit of two or four years automatically makes all 435 members of the House completely useless.

I'd argue that it's actually more important that Representatives be less hampered, within the relatively limited scope of their authority, than Senators or Presidents. A Senator or President is more abstract, with much broader interests in mind. But a Representative is your life-link to the government. Neuter him and you neuter yourself.
 
Einzige said:
by overly neutralizing his authority, you end up hurting yourself.
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Yeah, um.....I don't see that at all.

I'm in Delaware - think Joe Biden for decades and decades.....

What if the term limits for Congress was 4 terms? Or 6 terms?
 
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