Politics suck!

Neighbor of mine ran on term limits was a freshman in the Gingrich congress. Since he had run on term limits he retired after three terms. He supported a friend of his for the vacated seat. That friend is now a US Senator, and the neighbor replaced the Senator in the hold house seat.

On the one hand, he did good work in congress, so it is almost silly that he would now be about a 6 or 8 term rep instead of like two term, but I admire his principle in doing what he ran on.
 
Instead of writing a book of memoirs, Jeb Bush is data-dumping 250,000 docs pertaining to his time in the FL governor's mansion....

Do you think he can spell "presidential run"?
 
Term limits for everyone!!!!


Discuss.

<tone=Ishmael>
We have term limits already, they're called elections.
</tone>

Honestly I'm in favor of hard term limits. When being a politician becomes a life-long career rather than a sacrifice to serve the people it's a problem.
 
We will never know what truly happened in Florida, 2006. So much went missing. So many documents were shredded.
 
<tone=Ishmael>
We have term limits already, they're called elections.
</tone>

Honestly I'm in favor of hard term limits. When being a politician becomes a life-long career rather than a sacrifice to serve the people it's a problem.

And this will be one of the rare instances where I completely disagree with you! :)

I used to be in favor of hard term limits, then I read a history of the Medicis in Italy. Their downfall can be indirectly attributed to term limits.

Basically, an organization needs continuity, to prevent inefficient "reinventing the wheel" each time a new slate of elected officials is seated. When you have hard term limits, you are embiggening a perpetual bureaucracy, giving greatly increased power to unelected officiails that are basically accountable to nobody.

We're beginning to see that on a state level with shadowy organizations like ALEC.

I'm of the opinion that term limits do more harm than good.
 
<tone=Ishmael>
We have term limits already, they're called elections.
</tone>

Honestly I'm in favor of hard term limits. When being a politician becomes a life-long career rather than a sacrifice to serve the people it's a problem.

So what happens when someone is fucking AWESOME and we want to keep them around as long as possible? :confused:
 
And this will be one of the rare instances where I completely disagree with you! :)

I used to be in favor of hard term limits, then I read a history of the Medicis in Italy. Their downfall can be indirectly attributed to term limits.

Basically, an organization needs continuity, to prevent inefficient "reinventing the wheel" each time a new slate of elected officials is seated. When you have hard term limits, you are embiggening a perpetual bureaucracy, giving greatly increased power to unelected officiails that are basically accountable to nobody.

We're beginning to see that on a state level with shadowy organizations like ALEC.

I'm of the opinion that term limits do more harm than good.

I'm no where near this eloquent but pretty much this.
 
And this will be one of the rare instances where I completely disagree with you! :)

I used to be in favor of hard term limits, then I read a history of the Medicis in Italy. Their downfall can be indirectly attributed to term limits.

Basically, an organization needs continuity, to prevent inefficient "reinventing the wheel" each time a new slate of elected officials is seated. When you have hard term limits, you are embiggening a perpetual bureaucracy, giving greatly increased power to unelected officiails that are basically accountable to nobody.

We're beginning to see that on a state level with shadowy organizations like ALEC.

I'm of the opinion that term limits do more harm than good.

I'm not talking about tossing the entire congress, or even half of it, in one go. I'm talking about a small number of House and Senate seats up for re-election every year but leaving the length of term unchanged. At worst a single seat would turn over every time it came up for election (every two years in the House, every six in the Senate). Limiting House seats to three terms and Senate seats to two would mean a House seat would be force vacated by term limits every 6 years, a Senate seat every 12. Another stipulation being that you can serve no more than 12 years total between both chambers, closing a loophole that would allow career politicians to bounce back and forth between the two bodies.

I don't think that this would impact continuity of the legislative bodies any more than the current system already does. It would however, end life-long seats, and the almost inevitable corruption that comes with them.
 
I'm not talking about tossing the entire congress, or even half of it, in one go. I'm talking about a small number of House and Senate seats up for re-election every year but leaving the length of term unchanged. At worst a single seat would turn over every time it came up for election (every two years in the House, every six in the Senate). Limiting House seats to three terms and Senate seats to two would mean a House seat would be force vacated by term limits every 6 years, a Senate seat every 12. Another stipulation being that you can serve no more than 12 years total between both chambers, closing a loophole that would allow career politicians to bounce back and forth between the two bodies.

I don't think that this would impact continuity of the legislative bodies any more than the current system already does. It would however, end life-long seats, and the almost inevitable corruption that comes with them.

I'll concede your argument has merit with respect to the Senate (which has staggered terms already, given the six years cycles). I'm still skeptical about how that'd work in the House, simply because every seat is up for grabs every two years.
 
I'm trying to show query how to write a coherent post. He tries so hard..... :D

Yeah, about that....speaking of incoherent, you should try harder:

I'll concede your argument has merit with respect to the Senate (which has staggered terms already, given the six years cycles). I'm still skeptical about how that'd work in the House, simply because every seat is up for grabs every two years.

Are you under the impression that all 435 members of the House have the same tenure? That no incumbents ever loses a primary? That no incumbent has ever been thrown out of office in a general election before term limits could possibly apply?

The House is already far more subject to turnover than the Senate, which was a design feature, not a bug to make them more directly responsive to the will of their constituencies.

In theory, if it was the will of the voters you could have 435 brand-new representatives in 2016. The only reason why this does not happen is because everyone hates your representative (Sheila Jackson-Lee is it?) but keeps their own because the lack of term-limits means that accrued seniority has tremendous value to the home district...and by tremendous value: I mean pork.

Are you operating under the assumption that the entrenched bureaucracy, the unofficial fourth branch of government is currently in anyway responsive to the entrenched congress that depends on that bureaucracy to dispense special favors and pork? How responsive are those bureaucrats to congressional oversight and accountability, now?

Term limits increase, not decrease the accountability of the bureaucracy to the voters.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

So...where did you lift the example of the Medicis from? I know good and damned well you did not happen to crack open the spine of a dusty volume on the political history of the Renaissance and happen to have this epiphany. Seems a bit weighty for twitter...maybe you caught the reference in an Atlantic piece, or politico maybe?

Oh wait...here it is: http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2009/08/24/the-untouchable

Naturally that article is too long for you to have actually read it, so I would imagine you saw someone who did read the article making that point sometime in the past.

#Tertiaryposteratbest
#Robtriessohardforapproval
 
...and he fails so often...

I'll take that as as close as you will ever get to an honest admission that you were never "reading about the Medicis..."

Maybe if you spent a little more time reading for interest instead of digging for memes and tweets and hackneyed insults to "get" your "enemies" with you might occasionally have a cogent thought to offer that you can sincerely claim as our very own.

#Plagiarist
 
I recall an editorial cartoon published after the 1994 "Republican Revolution." An elephant riding in a carriage with a "Just Married" sign on the rear is kicking out an astonished bride labeled "Term Limits."
 
I recall an editorial cartoon published after the 1994 "Republican Revolution." An elephant riding in a carriage with a "Just Married" sign on the rear is kicking out an astonished bride labeled "Term Limits."

I knew one of those '94 Republicans. He kept his pledge and did not seek re-election after the third term.
 
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