One of the complaints we have about our political leaders is that they become career politicians and have not sense of who we are as a people. They live in their beltway bubble and only come out to campaign. Look at people like Joe Biden who has been in political offices for 50 years. That doesn’t leave a lot of time to have worked a real job. One of the reasons people in power don’t like Donald Trump is that he has been forced to meet a payroll and produce results. He does not have the mindset of career politicians. He does not fit in.
One of the solutions to this is term limits. Term limits is legislation that limits the number of times a person can be elected to an office. The only such limit in the Constitution has to do with president and that was not in the original document. It was added in the 22nd Amendment as a response to the four terms of Franklin Delano Roosevelt. His long run put people in fear of a popular president setting himself up for life as has happened so often in the world. America has not wanted a king, at least in the past.
The Founding Fathers were not big fans of term limits. If they had been then we would see it in the Constitution. They seemed to feel that the arbitrators of length of service should be the voters. They deliberately made it easy to vote out members of the House of Representative by having them all run for reelection every two years. Since they were the authors of spending bills this made it easy for people to get rid of them and find a replacement. The Senate, on the other hand, served for six years. It was supposed to give them time to deliberate and not be so sensitive to the emotions of the people. The Senate was originally elected by the state legislators which further isolated them from the fickle nature of the masses. But there were no term limits.
Keep in mind that term limits work both ways. It gets rid of dead weight but also dumps people who are doing a good job and have the experience to get things done. Usually we have different people we want thrown out, depending on our political party.
At present I am against term limits. Members of Congress are elected to represent the people they serve. If the people don’t like them then vote the suckers out. The fact that most people are not paying attention is no excuse. As much as I would like to see Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer depart the scene, that is up to the people who elected them, not me or my cronies.
The answer to the fools in Congress is to have fewer fools in the ballot box. That means more discussion in the public square by you and me. That means educating ourselves and plugging along. That is why Face Book, Twitter and Google are so set on driving conservative voices out of the public conversation.
Keep talking while you have a chance.
homo unius libri
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Comments are welcome. Feel free to agree or disagree but keep it clean, courteous and short. I heard some shorthand on a podcast: TLDR, Too long, didn't read.