As others have said, campaign reform via overturning Citizens United is a much more important matter.

There is really no way to make that change.

It's real nice to say that we have elections, but come on, no election is ever going to replace some good ole' boy Republican congressman from rural Alabama. He ain't going anywhere unless you have term limits.

Sometimes it feels like there's an election every other week. Out Reps and Senators are almost constantly in "campaign mode," rather than actually legislating. As soon as they sit down, they have to defend the seat.

But then I'd also support a parliamentary system of government, to replace the current primitive "winner take all" system we're running.

Just 'cause we invented it doesn't mean we're the best at it, sadly.

Even if by some miracle we could get term limits through the congress. ( They're going to limit *themselves*? I don't think so.)

I think where it's been done locally ( like NYC , for example) it was forced on 'em by referendum. No mechanism for that at the federal level.


Still... the idea is worth talking and thinking about. ( Preferably in reverse order.)

Given the population turnover in any given district, the people who vote for a candidate the third time are not all the same people who elected him/her the first time. Should the new voters be denied the right to choose the representative they want just because someone else -- who may no longer reside in the district -- voted for them before ?

Remember, the limit on Presidential terms was legislated by vengeful R's after FDR's fourth victory. GOP presidents get to be too old (or too incriminated) for a third term; without the 22nd Amendment, only Clinton could have won a third term since, and we weren't better off with his successor. Most Presidents who sought a third term failed; no further "protection" is really needed. FDR probably won a fourth term largely because it was a wartime election. Personally, I'd love to see the 22A repealed just to get Obama (at least) one more term. The 22A seems to say that you can't give the voters what they want. I'd rather trust the voters to make the right decision.

WW II may have ended up differently with term limits, but that isn't the strongest argument.

Rather, I would point out that the Republicans were the first to advocate term limits. They did that in a blatant attempt to cut off the decades long Democratic congressional majority. Of course, once the 80's came and Republicans gained a majority, they shut up about it.

I am totally against term limits. Let the voters speak.

Important is election finance reform. Kill Citizens United and mandate sole public funding limits. That eliminates the need for term limits. Period!

States can do it if they want, but it has real problems.

If you have an effective elected representative, why would you want to term limit that person?

Term limits destroy institutional memory so that you constantly have a new crop of ignorant newbies who are never sure just what has been tried and what hasn't.

As instituted in California, it didn't really remove career politicians, just rotated them through various offices. Their expertise was lost, because they went on to a new job.

Term limits go hand n hand with the theory that government should not be a full job. But in the modern world, everything is too complex for that to be workable in most places.

By the time the legislators learn the ropes, they're termed out. Then it's time for the lobbyists to mentor a new class.

Ted Kennedy should not have been term limited. Neither should Franklin D Roosevelt

but now I realize they would do nothing to solve our problems; in fact, they are a recipe for gridlock and possibly a boon for lobbyists.

Instead we need proportional representation. Our current method of electing members of congress is profoundly un-democratic. If you live in a 'safe' district, your vote effectively does not count unless you vote for the winner. Just look at what just happened in the house. Even though more people voted for democrats, repukes hold on to a majority because of gerrymandering.

This proposed amendment is fresh from Friday January 4, 2013.

See thread at http://www.democraticunderground.com/1091727

As long as the vote is counted in secrecy and not verified, term limits are irrelevant.

Assuming the vote that gets a candidate into office is the real vote, I don't see why that person can't stay in as long as he or she can continue to be elected. The longer you're in, the better you should be able to understand how to serve more effectively. If you're in it just for the power trip, of course, you will also know better how to remain in power even if you're not doing a very good job. But I think the balance tips toward not having term limits.

One of the reasons why most people don't vote is because there aren't term limits and/or relatives of people that have been in offices get elected to those offices. I'd like to take this further by saying that a person that is or has been or will be an immediate family member of any other person elected to a public office is automatically disqualified from being elected to that public office.

the house is enough.

But we can't allow families to control our elections; we must give more citizens the ability to be elected to public offices; otherwise we'll have the equivalent of a constitutional monarchiac dictatorship. Recall Congressional members that oppose term limits.

If we get a good representative for our district, and they are the best option, then I want to vote for them ...

I should be able to vote for the best, and that person might be a senior pol ... think Teddy Kennedy ...

someone has really learned the job, they're term limited out. Just think about it.

Someone has suggested two terms for Senators, Six for Representatives. Each serving a total of twelve years. If this were to come about, starting twelve years into the term limits, For senators, it would mean that every single election (if I'm doing the math right) half of the seats would be open seats. For Representatives, one sixth (sixteen percent) of all seats would be open seats. That of course assumes that each senator and representative actually is elected every time until they are term limited out.

To me this is not a good solution. There is a huge problem with lobbyists, and that's in no small part that much of the legislation they're trying to pass involves complex issues that most legislators don't know a whole lot about. Some sorts of restrictions on lobbyists are needed, but other than to prevent anyone who has worked in an industry from ever being a lobbyist for that industry, I don't know what can be done.

The largest problem is that the very vast majority of legislators are lawyers. Plumbers and schoolteachers and engineers and every other occupation out there should be represented. Figure out a way to do that and things might be better.

Oh. And women should be serving in legislatures in proportion to their numbers in the society at large. Think about what that would mean.

On one hand, it prevents incumbents from becoming gradually corrupted and should, in theory, make more races competitive. On the other hand, more competitive races means more chances for big money to get involved and, on the off-chance you get a good politician, why should there be an arbitrary limit on how long they can serve for?

So I'm undecided on teh issue. Also, I think there are better ways to deal with the power of money in campaigns.