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Congressional term limits

Would you support this amendment to the US Constitution?

  • Total voters
    35
Winnb said:
What's the main problem?

We have term limits in Virginia, but only for the Governor (one term). Our Congressman and Senators can serve a lifetime. And 99% of them do.
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What I like about Virginia's gubernatorial term limits is that you can technically serve for as many terms as you want, but not for two consecutive terms. That way, you can vote good people back in eventually, but nobody gets the advantages of incumbency.
 
Vader said:
In a pefect world, sure that would be true. Remember ... power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
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Wow, that's a useless cliche.

Given enough time, even those most forthright individual can be corrupteed. For this reason, politicans must be changed often. Doing so removes corrupted individuals from office.
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Let the voters decide when someone has become corrupted. Not you.

Without limits there is no balance. Corruption goes unchecked we would be doomed. Imagine if President Nixon, who participated in the commission of a felony, had never been removed from office?
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You realize that he did leave office and term limits had nothing to do with it, right?

Term limits are a part of the system of checks and balances upon which our country was founded.
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Well, no, they weren't. There were no term limits in the original Constitution.

TERMS, and regular elections, were the system of checks and balances.

If nothing else, we need a system by which a senator/congressman can be removed from office. A vote of no confidence or something similar.
A system by which dishonest people can be removed from office.
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We already have that! It's called elections! :doh
 
Winnb said:
That would require the people that are doing the gerrymandering to stop the gerrymandering. So far that has proven to be an impossible task for them.
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There are other ways. Iowa has given the redistricting process to an independent commission, for instance.

That is an extremely difficult claim to prove in American politics. Are you saying that money and power are irrelevant in an American election? If true it would seem that our politicians are spending a tremendous amount of time raising money for no reason.
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Money has influence, but not power. There is a huge difference. Only voters have power. They decide.

Well that goes back to the original problem. The person with the most money can throw the "most ads at'em". And that person is probably the incumbent. Not always, I'll give you that, but about 95% of the time.
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So?

You got a problem with majority rule?
 
Dav said:
What I like about Virginia's gubernatorial term limits is that you can technically serve for as many terms as you want, but not for two consecutive terms. That way, you can vote good people back in eventually, but nobody gets the advantages of incumbency.
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I hate Virginia's system. Every governor is a lame duck. As soon as he has figured things out, he has to go. It's absurd. We waste alot of talent that way.

Then again, we did get rid of that idiot Gilmore.
 
misterman said:
I hate Virginia's system. Every governor is a lame duck. As soon as he has figured things out, he has to go. It's absurd. We waste alot of talent that way.

Then again, we did get rid of that idiot Gilmore.
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Seems to have worked so far. And really, if it takes someone a whole term to figure things out, there's something wrong to begin with.
 
misterman said:
Let the voters decide when someone has become corrupted. Not you.
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I will. When the vote to add term limits happens they will make their voices heard.

misterman said:
You realize that he did leave office and term limits had nothing to do with it, right?
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Yes, I do. He resigned in disgrace after being linked to the burglary of the
of the hedquarters of the Democratic National Party.
 
Vader said:
I will. When the vote to add term limits happens they will make their voices heard.
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Wow, did you just write that?

You want to limit the choice of voters so their voice can be heard? Really?

Think that one over a minute.

Yes, I do. He resigned in disgrace after being linked to the burglary of the
of the hedquarters of the Democratic National Party.
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Yes. So term limits weren't necessary.

It is already easy to remove bad politicians through elections or impeachment. Term limits only get rid of the good ones too. How can you tell which ones are good or bad? Simple - let the voters decide every election. They don't need you deciding for them.
 
misterman said:
There are other ways. Iowa has given the redistricting process to an independent commission, for instance.
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True. There's talk of that here. Again. And again. The problem is no one ever does anything about it. The commission talk (sometimes called a panel) comes along every few years. Now Governor McDonnell is talking about it.

We'll see...

Money has influence, but not power. There is a huge difference. Only voters have power. They decide.
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You can't have power without money in today's political world. There's just no way. There's a reason politicians spend so much time raising money. And it's not because they like it.

Voters have the power of one vote. That's it. But money can buy many more votes.


So?

You got a problem with majority rule?
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No of course not. Nor did I ever say that. My problem is with the power and influence an incumbent has over our political system. Once contacts are made, favors are owed, palms are greased, and cronyism is in full swing, the incumbent becomes a powerful beast.

For example: If Ted Kennedy were alive and well do you believe Brown would have beaten him in Massachusetts? Or would Kennedy have crushed him like a bug?

.
 
Dav said:
I'm more concerned with getting bad people out than with getting good people in.



But the voters of different states affect me, even though I can't vote for their candidates.
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Come on Dav, you are better than this. Both getting the bad out and the good in is a concern, and without doing both, we won't have a good government.

How different states vote does effect you, but you are not supposed to have a say in who they elect. That is how the process is set up, and it is the right setup. Term limits will not lead to those other states voting how you like.
 
TheGirlNextDoor said:
Personally, I don't trust most voters to make an informed decision. Name recognition plays a big role in incumbents getting the vote, whereas newcomers don't have that immediate appeal to people who just walk into the polls and vote for someone based on the fact that they 'recognize' the name. Unfortunately, the voting records of their representatives often aren't researched or scrutinized.
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If you don't trust voters, then you might want to move to a country without an elected government. If you live here, you have to accept that voters are the final arbiters of who represents us. Getting upset about it is not going to do you any good, nor are term limits, which serve no other purpose than limiting the choice of the voters.
 
Dav said:
Yes, but seeing as how now - at least in the perception of the public, which is really all that matters - we have more bad people than good, a policy that would get rid of bad people would be effective even if it also got rid of good people.
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We have a policy to get rid of people that are perceived as bad. It's called elections. ;)



Yes, and what they want, unfortunately, is power. Senior Congressmen and Senators have set it up so that seniority matters a lot in the legislative process, thus meaning that if voters want to vote out the incumbent, they have to vote to give themselves significantly less power than previously. Thus keeping bad incumbents in and good challengers out.

There is a lot of other things that give incumbents an unfair advantage as well.
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This is less about "bad" people vs. "good" people and more about legislative process.
 
CaptainCourtesy said:
We have a policy to get rid of people that are perceived as bad. It's called elections. ;)
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And we have a winner! If people cannot be trusted to vote out bad politicians, then how can we trust them to vote in good ones?
 
Redress said:
And we have a winner! If people cannot be trusted to vote out bad politicians, then how can we trust them to vote in good ones?
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Though I agree with what some of said... I generally don't trust the average voter to make good informed decisions, until there is something better, this is the appropriate policy. Remember, if voters are stupid, term limits aren't going to stop them from voting stupid people in office.
 
After the discussion here, I've decided to change my poll answer (or I would if I could).

I no longer support term limits.

I think the issue is not with the number of terms that can be served.

The issue is with the process by which politicians are elected.

Ironically enough, my reasons for changing my answer are part of the issue, in a way.

Voters don't think about the candidates and their issues enough, or (in some cases) do not/are not able to get enough information about the candidates to make a proper (as in, informed) decision.
 
The Mark said:
After the discussion here, I've decided to change my poll answer (or I would if I could).

I no longer support term limits.

I think the issue is not with the number of terms that can be served.

The issue is with the process by which politicians are elected.

Ironically enough, my reasons for changing my answer are part of the issue, in a way.

Voters don't think about the candidates and their issues enough, or (in some cases) do not/are not able to get enough information about the candidates to make a proper (as in, informed) decision.
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I can change your vote.

Good points. The process of how politicians are elected is the problem.
 
CaptainCourtesy said:
We have a policy to get rid of people that are perceived as bad. It's called elections. ;)
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Yes, and incumbents have unfair advantages in them.

Do you deny - as I said in the post you were responding to - that Congress generally has a very low approval rating?


This is less about "bad" people vs. "good" people and more about legislative process.
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Did you read the post? I don't see how you could say it isn't about "good" and "bad" people if you had. I have yet to hear a single good argument against the point I made there.

Redress said:
And we have a winner! If people cannot be trusted to vote out bad politicians, then how can we trust them to vote in good ones?
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It's not a matter of not trusting people. I trust people in general more than almost everyone else here. It's about unfair advantages such as:
-Votes for incumbents being votes for giving your district more power; votes against incumbents being votes for giving your district less power (this is probably the most important one)
-Enormous fund raising and name recognition advantage for the incumbent (especially in primaries, which is part of the next point)
-Partisanship. People are usually unwilling to vote against their preferred party, and people may also be unwilling to vote an incumbent out in a primary for fear that this gives their party less of a chance of keeping the seat.

CaptainCourtesy said:
Though I agree with what some of said... I generally don't trust the average voter to make good informed decisions
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And I do. I hate being labeled as some kind of elitist for supporting term limits when in fact I am probably one of the most anti-elitist people on the forum, moreso than most people who are against term limits. I just think that term limits are logical, given everything I've already said.
 
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Dav said:
Yes, and incumbents have unfair advantages in them.

Do you deny - as I said in the post you were responding to - that Congress generally has a very low approval rating?
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If Congress has a low approval rating, what's the advantage of being an incumbent?

It's not a matter of not trusting people. I trust people in general more than almost everyone else here. It's about unfair advantages such as:
-Votes for incumbents being votes for giving your district more power; votes against incumbents being votes for giving your district less power (this is probably the most important one)
-Enormous fund raising and name recognition advantage for the incumbent (especially in primaries, which is part of the next point)
-Partisanship. People are usually unwilling to vote against their preferred party, and people may also be unwilling to vote an incumbent out in a primary for fear that this gives their party less of a chance of keeping the seat.
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But yes, it is about not trusting the voters, because the bottom line is the VOTERS CHOOSE. They are the ones making a free choice based on all these things. Apparently voters LIKE incumbents, and people who have more name recognition, and spend more money on ads and all that. Who are you to tell them they can't vote the way they do?

You're a sore loser. You hate that the voters are choosing people you don't think they ought to choose. But no matter what the reason for their choices, it is still their choice. Period.

And I do. I hate being labeled as some kind of elitist for supporting term limits when in fact I am probably one of the most anti-elitist people on the forum, moreso than most people who are against term limits. I just think that term limits are logical, given everything I've already said.
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You are totally elitist. You think you know better than the voters who should be elected. You want to limit their choices.
 
Redress said:
And we have a winner! If people cannot be trusted to vote out bad politicians, then how can we trust them to vote in good ones?
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Because most politicians start out good (or at least well-intentioned) and become bad over time. I think the vast majority of people who seek public office do so because of a genuine desire to help improve the country, and eventually become corrupted/incompetent/out-of-touch as they settle into the way things are done in Washington.

Term limits would create a lot more job turnover, so people wouldn't be there long enough for that to happen.
 
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CaptainCourtesy said:
Though I agree with what some of said... I generally don't trust the average voter to make good informed decisions, until there is something better, this is the appropriate policy. Remember, if voters are stupid, term limits aren't going to stop them from voting stupid people in office.
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They'll prevent them from voting the SAME stupid person into office repeatedly, which will at least make it more likely that they'll get a smart person occasionally. ;)
 
Kandahar said:
Because most politicians start out good (or at least well-intentioned) and become bad over time.
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Yet a majority of voters elect them. Apparently they think otherwise. Who are you to override their decision?
 
Kandahar said:
Because most politicians start out good (or at least well-intentioned) and become bad over time. I think the vast majority of people who seek public office do so because of a genuine desire to help improve the country, and eventually become corrupted/incompetent/out-of-touch as they settle into the way things are done in Washington.

Term limits would create a lot more job turnover, so people wouldn't be there long enough for that to happen.
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You have some evidence of this? I think this is a popular view, but I don't know that it is true.
 
misterman said:
If Congress has a low approval rating, what's the advantage of being an incumbent?
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Because no one ever thinks THEIR congressman is part of the problem. It's the 434 other guys, and the stupid voters from those other districts.

misterman said:
But yes, it is about not trusting the voters, because the bottom line is the VOTERS CHOOSE. They are the ones making a free choice based on all these things. Apparently voters LIKE incumbents, and people who have more name recognition,
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That doesn't make any sense. You're saying they vote for people with more name recognition because they like people with more name recognition, and not because they, umm, recognize their name?

misterman said:
and spend more money on ads and all that. Who are you to tell them they can't vote the way they do?
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They would still be free to vote for a politician with identical political views. Hell, if they really loved Incumbency Bob that much, there would be nothing stopping them from voting for someone who campaigned on a promise to let Incumbency Bob make all of the decisions for him. But I doubt that would ever happen, because voters don't actually VALUE incumbency very much...they just KNOW the incumbent better.
 
Dav said:
It's bad enough that you ignored all of my points, but throwing insults is rarely an effective debate tactic.
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I addressed your points head-on. I didn't consider either of these insults at all, but if you did, I apologize and withdraw them. Please respond to the rest of my post.
 
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