Congressional Term Limits

[BmorePat87]

Trump proposed pushing for an amendment to impose congressional term limits. My friends and I were discussing this so I thought it'd be good to bring up here.

Thought?

[BmorePat87]

Copied from my chat with them, so the flow isn't great, sorry lol.

I am against limits, and here is why.

So when I look at what is wrong with Congress, I have to ask if term limits is an issue would term limits fix congress? The only conclusion I can come to is they would hurt it even more, and here's why: The legislative branch is easily our most complicated branch, and it was designed to be
the day to day operations run on long standing traditions and the maneuvering of legislators to get things done is dependent on existing coalitions, knowledge of obscure rules, and quid pro quo.

currently the problems I see are:
1) Gerrymandering has resulted in the most partisan candidates getting elected
2) The electorate are truly uneducated on their candidates

the seniority system in Congress is extremely important, especially for committees where most legislation is filtered. You jeopardize having truly knowledgable and experienced law makers if you limit how long they can stay in Congress. Most Congressman are lawyers or have law backgrounds and that will never change. They understand the law and the Constitution, they're who should be making laws
but they're not going to be experts in all fields, so having them stay on committees for long periods of time keep them knowledgable
it also means the support staff, which is crucial, remains, and good advisors stay on to advise them

Pass a gerrymandering amendment requiring all districts to go through a bi or non partisan committee that can be vetoed on the ballot by the people via referendum. you'll have more moderate candidates and districts won't inherently be bastions for their parties.
you then need to have some system of getting more information out to voters
whether that's a law mandating progress reports of sorts or online reporting to constituents, the people need to know what their candidate is doing. Congress is unpopular, but incumbents get reelected nearly 90% of the time because people believe their guy is doing a good job but everyone else sucks

it might also mean public financing to remove outside money. Groups from across the country will fight for or against candidates in hotly contested districts.


another proposal is recesses for the purposes of giving representatives time to go home and work in the community. Like office hours but for members of Congress

If the reason for term limits is to prevent Congressmen from getting too comfortable and just working for themselves, I'm going to suggest that the result will be inexperienced lawmakers who will be more focused on getting their cut than building long term coalitions since their time is limited

[BmorePat87]

I also think this Amendment would be the first to go the state conventions route IF it were to pass. Congress won't impose limits on themselves.

[BmorePat87]

bump since part of Trump's first 100 days is to do propose a term limit amendment.

[Belsnickel]

(11-10-2016, 06:39 PM)BmorePat87 Wrote: bump since part of Trump's first 100 days is to do propose a term limit amendment.

Which will be met with much laughter.

[Millhouse]

Congress's response...

[SunsetBengal]

(11-10-2016, 07:00 PM)Belsnickel Wrote: Which will be met with much laughter.

Yep, from what I read earlier, Mitch McConnell pretty much dismissed the idea.

[BmorePat87]

You'd need to go the state convention route, but even then it wouldn't pass and nor should it.

[Belsnickel]

(11-10-2016, 07:35 PM)BmorePat87 Wrote: You'd need to go the state convention route, but even then it wouldn't pass and nor should it.

Too bad there wasn't one of those amendments just sitting there like the 27th was.

I do kid, there, because term limits for Congress is not something I am in favor of for a number of reasons.

[Millhouse]

As President Bartlett once said, 'it turns out we have term limits. They're called elections.'

[SunsetBengal]

(11-10-2016, 07:47 PM)Belsnickel Wrote: Too bad there wasn't one of those amendments just sitting there like the 27th was.

I do kid, there, because term limits for Congress is not something I am in favor of for a number of reasons.

I do agree that term limits for Congress perhaps is not the best idea.  However, the lifetime salary and benefits is costing the public, a lot.  These are all educated, successful people, they should easily be able to earn a living once their time in public service is done.  And the ones that retire from Congress should have done well enough to sustain themselves from their earnings and lobbyist payouts.

[Benton]

the lack of term limits encourages paying back favors.

having term limits encourages deal making.

both have pros and cons.

[*michaelsean*]

Not a big fan. We should be able to elect who we want. President included, but that one is already a done deal.

[Belsnickel]

(11-10-2016, 09:19 PM)SunsetBengal Wrote: I do agree that term limits for Congress perhaps is not the best idea.  However, the lifetime salary and benefits is costing the public, a lot.  These are all educated, successful people, they should easily be able to earn a living once their time in public service is done.  And the ones that retire from Congress should have done well enough to sustain themselves from their earnings and lobbyist payouts.

I know there is a little bit of sarcasm here, but this walks into some interesting territory. I need to pull together some information to have a discussion about the revolving door lobbyists and the issue that is in our government. Public servants don't get the money while working in their government job, they get it when they leave and when they get paid 4-10x their government salaries just because of the influence they bring with them.

[*PhilHos*]

I understand the arguments, but as of now, I am in favor of term limits.

[Rotobeast]

Let's just limit the terms length.
Let's shorten them to two years.

Sent from my SM-S820L using Tapatalk

[Benton]

There are a lot of pros and cons, but one that I hear the most often is 'but then you get inexperienced lawmakers.'

Two things:

First, no, you don't. Do you think every member of Congress is actually sitting around reading every 2,000 page piece of legislation that they vote on? Come on, there's not enough hours in the day. They rely on staff to tell them what they're voting on, what their base wants and what their party wants. And much of that staff doesn't change.

Your elected official is just representative of the staff he and his party have in place. Plug in another guy of the same party, you're — 9 times out of 10 — going to get the same vote.

Second, you get less experienced lawmakers, but more experienced people. Lawmakers are incredibly insulated (which goes back to the fairly constant staff around them). The longer they're in office, the longer they're away from the people and reasons they ran for office. Instead of being citizens serving citizens, they become party members serving parties.

Personally, what I'd like to see is what some states have for state officials. You can serve multiple terms, but not more than two consecutive. Send the representative back to the real world, if only for four years, and let him remember what it's like to get up and go to a real job or at the very least not have the perks of the pin.

[JustWinBaby]

(11-12-2016, 01:45 AM)Benton Wrote: And much of that staff doesn't change.

I'd suggest that "staff" rolls over frequently and often.  It's interns and grad students from law and public policy schools just starting out....after 4 years, max, they're moving on to the next thing (which in many cases is probably politics).

Now if you are talking POTUS, and cabinet and offices etc....then I'd agree that Dept of Defense, for example, is largely driven by career staffers.

But otherwise, yeah, you're voting for "experienced" Congressionals that farm out most of their work to 20-something college kids.

[Benton]

(11-12-2016, 06:11 AM)JustWinBaby Wrote: I'd suggest that "staff" rolls over frequently and often.  It's interns and grad students from law and public policy schools just starting out....after 4 years, max, they're moving on to the next thing (which in many cases is probably politics).

Now if you are talking POTUS, and cabinet and offices etc....then I'd agree that Dept of Defense, for example, is largely driven by career staffers.

But otherwise, yeah, you're voting for "experienced" Congressionals that farm out most of their work to 20-something college kids.

largely I was talking about the upper level positions. Military advisors, for example, are all mostly the same as they were following the bush house cleaning.

but you'd be surprised about the lower level individual staff. About half of congressional staffers quit in the first year. Mostly due to low pay and long hours. But ones that make it passed two years usually stay throughout their reps time
and each rep gets roughly the same budget to spend. Newly elected members of congress tend to spend it on more staff making less money. Lifers tend to spend it on fewer staff members who make much higher salaries.

http://congressional-staff.insidegov.com/

usually, the ones making the highest salaries are the one on small staffs and stay around a long time.

[JustWinBaby]

(11-12-2016, 11:50 AM)Benton Wrote: largely I was talking about the upper level positions. Military advisors, for example, are all mostly the same as they were following the bush house cleaning.

but you'd be surprised about the lower level individual staff. About half of congressional staffers quit in the first year. Mostly due to low pay and long hours. But ones that make it passed two years usually stay throughout their reps time
and each rep gets roughly the same budget to spend. Newly elected members of congress tend to spend it on more staff making less money. Lifers tend to spend it on fewer staff members who make much higher salaries.

http://congressional-staff.insidegov.com/

usually, the ones making the highest salaries are the one on small staffs and stay around a long time.

Interesting.  Makes sense.  I don't think it changes the answer any.

I wonder how much of "lies" and broken campaign "promises" has to do with getting schooled by career staffers as to how things actually work after winning an election.

And those career staffers are unelected - something we all should have a big problem with given how much power they wield.  But that is a direct and unavoidable result of a bigger and bigger federal govt.