First, I got another quixotic corporate complaint going on today. Over and over again the customer is not right even when solving the problem or not even a problem is simple. Until I do more I will remain quiet, but I am chasing another windmill and hopefully, I can tear off a bit and get some satisfaction. Or better yet, what should be done in the first place.
I struggle with so many people being for term limits. I don’t like talking negatively, yet term limits are a weak and ineffective way to solve a problem. I have talked about term limits before so I am going to focus on two aspects of why I do not think they will accomplish the goal people who want term limits think will happen.
I have two concerns and one only affects the House of Representatives. The first concern is term limits are not election reform and especially if you are trying to limit the effect money or lobbying has on politics. In fact, it will make it worse.
Nowadays people think and rightfully so that because people are in Washington D.C. they are more influenced by lobbyists or because of the amount of time they are in office the lobbyist relationship is stronger. The goal is to hold the people we elect accountable to the general population not special interests. It seems some people believe if we create a revolving door these relationships wouldn’t be so ingrained.
This to me is naive. In fact, the opposite will happen and especially if the duopoly of the Republicans and Democrats continues. Money will find a way to protect money and by thinking you push back more control to the people you are doing the opposite. The lobbyists, the powerbrokers behind the money and the parties at the National level will find ways to groom and vet future candidates long before they run. Young people that show any political ambition will be conditioned to represent the power brokers long before they are in a position to run. Careers will be developed for these people so they can rise to become electable. And electable to the public, yet to the benefit of the same lobbyists’ relationships, we are trying to curtail with term limits. This is probably already going on to some degree, yet it will become even more entrenched.
Lobbying is an investment for special interests. The people who invest expect results. So instead of cuddling up to the current representatives they know can stay in power indefinitely they will realize they need to get ahead of the curve if the person voting on the laws only has a limited time to achieve their desired result. They are smart people. If the person coming into office is already married to their money and influence then the results of their efforts will be felt immediately. This is a much better investment for the power brokers and like I said is probably already being done to a degree. It is a larger investment because you have to do more research and more recruiting, yet once in office they are working for you from day one. The elected representative may think they are truly representing the people, yet the grooming will have produced so much cognitive dissonance they won’t even realize exactly how their votes in office truly affect their constituents versus the benefits to the benefactor.
Is this an extreme scenario? I do not think so, but if you want to believe term limits are going to solve problems you might think so.
The other concern is a bit harder to grasp and more simple, but it definitely gets in the way of saying that term limits will improve the actions of Congress and specifically the House of Representatives. The Senate would avoid this problem because it only turns over 1/3 at a time. The House turns over every two years. So if you limit people to five terms in the House and two in the Senate, there is ongoing change in the Senate. The House though could end up turning over once every ten years. If the lobbyists and National Parties control who is elected which they will, then the only time voting matters will become when the current Representative’s cumulative total is finished. So every ten years we will get a whole flock of new Representatives that basically are the same as the old, but with new names. It seems a stretch that every elected Representative will fall on the same ten-year cycle, but if the power brokers continue to thrive in this environment they will find a way to make it happen. They only kink in the works would be if an official went off the chain and either went rogue or did something so egregious that the public went and found someone different for a term or two. And looking at the current level of public interest in actually how bad our politicians are, it would take something extremely egregious for anyone the powerbrokers put in place to be removed from office by a vote.
As always the real way a successful democracy or representative republic or something similar is going to work is to have an educated and engaged electorate. And the duopoly of Republicans and Democrats have done a great job of keeping the public uneducated and limited in the engagement aspect of voting. The parties keep moving to the extremes year over year so the candidates must satisfy the few who vote in the primaries which leaves us a limited choice in representation to the general populace. As always this leads me to say.....wait for it......wait for it......We need new parties.
We need serious election reform, the money out of politics, better candidates and more. And I have posted ideas on that topic and I have some new ideas for election reform that I could add to that post soon. For today, I just wanted to spit out a few pitfalls that reliance on term limits to solve our problems may present.
Cheers
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