The 90s nostalgia is huge right now (afp photo)
It seems inevitable, in retrospect — that the anti-incumbent spirit at work among voters this year would lead to a resurrection of the term limits movement that was last heard from in the 1990s (but never really went away). From the inbox:
Dear Americans,
This note introduces Spirit of 1787, a non-profit group of your fellow citizens formed to impose term limits on Congress by amending the US Constitution.
We explain our work in detail on http://LimitCongress.US Please visit now!
This is a non-partisan effort to fix our badly broken Congress. The Founders’ citizen-legislator and duty-to-country intent seems just about gone, doesn’t it? While many start out as noble individuals, federal legislators become dysfunctional after years in Washington. They failed to fix themselves so “We the People” must do it for them, and for us.
Organizers behind the new movement want to push a Constitutional amendment limiting the terms of members of Congress. They want to achieve this by popular amendment, which has never been done in the history of this country. For oh, lots of good reasons.
Opponents ot term limitation argue that we already have term limits, they are called elections. We are currently in midterms, in which about 20 percent of eligible voters are taking part. If more people who tell pollsters they are angry actually voted, we might see the revolution that tea partiers and others keep prognosticating in vain.
Also, Congress is a body that operates largely on a seniority basis. While it’s true that incumbents tend to get deeply dug in like ticks up there, it’s also true that a long-serving member can deliver more to their home district than a freshman. If an incumbent goes bad — and history is rife with example — indictment or ejection by ballot can generally do the trick.
Term limits takes away voters’ choice. Term limits diminishes the value of elected office. It also creates a really shallow bench — and we have seen this in action at the local level — where quality candidates won’t waste the huge expense to run, and seats get filled by progressively worse incumbents.
Institutional knowledge is a good thing, and term limits delivers more power to non-elected bureaucracy — think of the federal government — because officeholders constantly cycle through and attain none of their own.
Term limits supporters also have good arguments. Elections aren’t competitive anymore, and incumbents have a huge advantage. Term limits would do away with issues of seniority and the lopsided system it creates in Congress. The automatic term limits purge would create a true representative government, and make it less of a rich person’s racket.
Also from the 90s.
