GOP Wants Term Limits All Right - For Democrats.

[TheMastersNemesis]

Newt came up with the idea because the GOP wanted to end Democratic control of Congress. And when they did get it with he help of corporations and probably the Kochs the GOPPERS who ran on term limits just stayed and stayed in Congress as long as they could. I think Tom Tancredo was one of those politicians.

Colorado has term limits so there is continuous rotation in both chambers. The problem is that effective and good politicians who should be around longer cannot stay. Continuous turn over has its own set of problems. Fortunately Republicans at least have to turn over as well. But we know they would exempt themselves if they could.

The only reason that the GOP wants term limits is that it believes it is a way to completely have control because they believe that money and corporations will keep them in power. They figure that their unlimited money sources will always win the day against opponents who do not have such an advantage.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

1. Missouri also instituted term limits

a while back. And, as is always the case, experience and institutional memory get tossed into the ditch.

There was one GOP Senator who thought term limits were a good idea, and left the Senate after a bit more than two terms. He then became Governor of Kansas. I'm referring to Sam Brownback, as dreadful a Christian Conservative Republican as there is out there.

In the early 2000s I had the dubious privilege of sitting in his office for about two hours, waiting to meet up with someone else (who never showed) before meeting with one of his staffers. I was there to lobby on behalf of an organization that I won't name, other than to say it's an advocacy one on behalf of members who have a particular disease. So we're not talking anything that should be remotely partisan. While waiting, I was fascinated by the sweet young thing who was working the front desk, answering the phone, greeting all who came in, and chatted with me. What was most astonishing was how she consistently trashed the other Republican Senator from Kansas.

So yeah, I know the underlying hypocrisy of term limits.

[Caliman73]

2. Term limits are dumb.

California has term limits for state offices. While we are a fairly solid Blue State and Democrats have both houses of the Assembly and the Governor's office, term limits have taken quite a few good politicians out of important roles. They usually bounce around in other positions, but not in the key roles that would be more effective.

The problem with term limits is that they take the institutional memory out of government, and not the problem that they are trying to solve which is stagnant politics or corruption. The politicians leave, and are more likely to revolve back in as lobbyists, but the staffers do not leave and the lobbyists never leave. They just wait for the inexperienced newly elected politicians to arrive and "help them to get familiar with how things are done", meaning, they gain influence and push their own agendas.

Taking money out of elections. Making it about policy and not about advertising and branding will solve many of the problems much more effectively than term limits.

[RockRaven]

4. +1000

Term limits in CA did nothing to shift the balance between parties, nor did it make elected officials more responsive to their voters -- both of which were among the reasons given at the time for why they'd be a good idea.

In some ways state reps/senators are now insured to be *less* responsive to their voters because every few terms your rep/senator is on their last term and looking to create their soft landing/next job instead of trying to keep voters happy enough to get re-elected.

Add to that the loss of experience/senority and CA has seen a disturbing amount of legislation being written by lobbyists/think tanks who pass it on to legislators to present it and vote on it as if it were their own bill. Supposedly term limits were going to reduce the influence of "special interests" by breaking the longstanding patronage relationships between multi-decade elected officials and consistent large donors. Sadly, they increased "special interest" influence by creating a situation where they now literally write the bills, and the newbies are too inexperienced or insecure in their position to resist.

There was some public recognition that CA's original term limit had these lousy effects, so it has been modified slightly. Maybe in time it will get scrapped entirely, but I doubt it. It seems to be one of those conventional wisdom/gut instinct things where people's intuition is that it is a good idea, and the downsides are a bit remote/ephemeral.

[LastLiberal in PalmSprings]

3. From Washington state a congressional candidate ran on the promise he'd only serve two terms.

Once he got ensconced in Washington, however, he came up with all kinds of excuses to stay beyond his self-imposed limit. I guess he hadn't known how seductive membership in the Congressional Club can be.

Term limits means you lose institutional knowledge, and are reinventing the wheel over and over again.