By DJH
Recently, Ted Cruz put forth a proposal in the Senate and Ron DeSantis plans on putting one forward in the House, to amend the Constitution to make term limits. Before I put a half-hearted case forward. Now, I’ve decided to put an actual case forward for term limits. I’ll put forward some of the more common arguments against term limits that I’ve seen.
Term limits will create inexperienced politicians
Yeah, that’s nothing new. A major part of public office is on-the-job learning. A perfect example: Ted Cruz was a Solicitor General in Texas. There’s a massive difference between that and the US Senate.
Experience and politics have a complicated history. Some of the most experienced people are passed over in open seat elections for newer faces (see Trump 2016, Cotton 2014, Cruz 2012, and Rubio 2010). Simply put, experience is honestly overrated. People with plans, people with thoughts. That’s a lot more valuable in politics than a guy who’s been in every office ever but doesn’t offer anything.
Term limits won’t do anything to halt corruption in Washington
This argument is probably the strongest of them all against term limits, in my opinion. Corruption in Washington goes down beyond just the 535 people in Congress. It goes down to the lobbyists, bureaucrats in agencies, etc. Well, one thing that term limits do is limit the amount of time a politician and his/her staff have to get cozy with lobbyists. What would be a major aid is to stop politicians, all politicians, from becoming lobbyists, at least for a certain number of years (20 would be good, I think). Certain regulations are, indeed, needed at the federal level. Regulating politicians and lobbyists is something that would be good a federal regulation. Term limits will also see a constant change in staff, meaning staffers who get cozy with lobbyists likely won’t around as long.
Will term limits solve the corruption? No. But they’ll be a start. It’ll bring in new faces to Congress, introduce new ideals, and we’ll see the people who’ve been in Congress for way too long and cozied up to lobbyists go out.
Elections should be term limits
Yeah- they aren’t. In 2016, 487 members of the House and Senate ran for reelection. Of those 487, a total of 15 were defeated… 97% of all members of congress who ran in 2016 won reelection. Four ran without general opposition, and many more ran without primary opposition.
The power of the incumbent is extremely strong. A perfect example is Marco Rubio here in Florida. Before he entered the Senate race, there were a good number of candidates–Ron DeSantis, Carlos Lopez-Cantera, David Jolly–all of whom had strong edges in the race. Right as the incumbent gets in, everyone drops out because there’s no point challenging him.
Incumbents have a massive amount of party money behind them, even if it isn’t official. The major donors all look at the incumbent unless he or she is unpopular or goes against the party ideals (see Tim Huelskamp). So the money usually goes to the incumbent, while grassroots campaigns are largely funded by small donations. Vern Buchanan faced James Satcher this year. And you know what I noticed? Vern had dozens of signs all around Manatee County. I only saw one from Satcher, who didn’t have much money. I don’t even recall a single Vern Buchanan rally or anything like that. Heck, I don’t think he really did anything for the general election either.
Incumbents are usually reelected, and usually have a large flow of money going to them because of that. Term limits would make it so that new faces can actually come into play. Because if you have the same people going to congress every two years, nothing at all is going to change. At least with term limits you’ll see change.
FINAL STATEMENT
Term limits aren’t the perfect solution to the problem, and they will have consequences. But doing nothing will have worse consequences. Doing nothing will see career politicians staying where they are, and us getting nowhere as a nation. At this very moment, there are 19 Representatives and seven Senators who were in office while Reagan was President. Nothing is going to change while we have dinosaurs in office.
Also, a bit of a mini-rant- stop blaming Millennials for everything that’s wrong with politics in America.
1. We didn’t raise us- we weren’t the ones giving us participation trophies and stuff like that.
2. We don’t make up the vast majority of Congress- baby boomers do. The youngest member of Congress is 32, whereas the oldest is 87. The average age of Congress is in the late 50s.
3. We’re not the ones running the colleges with the safe spaces and the professors who’re teaching Socialist 101, are we?
