Levin: Congressional Term Limits

[C_Clayton_Jones]

One of right wing pundit Mark Levin's ten proposed amendments to the Constitution is term limits for Congress. Two six year terms for Senators, six two year terms for Representatives.

This, of course, is not a new idea. Term limits were discussed at the very founding of our nation.

After the Gingrich revolution of 1994, an amendment identical to what Levin is proposing was introduced by Representative Bill McCollum of Florida: Bill Text - 104th Congress (1995-1996) - THOMAS (Library of Congress)

This amendment failed because the Right felt six terms was still too long for House term limits. They wanted three terms, not six, to be the limit for a Representative.

A glimpse into the internecine battle: Congressional testimony of Senator Edward Crane-




It seems the concept of term limits is approved by many across the political spectrum, and yet it never happens. Why?

I think, in part, it is because the sitting members of Congress almost never go along with a plan that would result in many, or most, of them losing their seats.

Another factor is the idea that the people should decide when they have had enough of their Senator or Representative.

I would like to address that second point.

Every time a poll is taken of the public's attitude toward their government, Congress always scores very badly. For years now, the approval rating has been down in the single digits.

But a funny thing happens when you ask people about their own specific Represenative or Senators. Then it turns out they like their guys. They keep re-electing them, over and over. It's those OTHER bastards they hate.

Their Senator brings home the bacon. Their Senator has a lot of seniority which provides him with choice committee seats which ensure he will keep bringing home the bacon as long as he draws a breath.

I think this is the biggest factor which prevents term limits from getting off the ground; the how-does-this-affect-me factor.

Get rid of the other asshole, but don't touch my guy.

Some states have attempted to impose term limits on their Congressman and Senators, but they quickly realize what a tremendous disadvantage that would put their state if no one else did it.


So there you go. For or against term limits?

Have at it.

ETA: [MENTION=21905]FA_Q2[/MENTION]

Not to mention the fact it’s un-Constitutional for states to attempt to do so:

U.S. Term Limits, Inc. v. Thornton, 514 U.S. 779 (1995).

Interesting read. At first I thought they were off as the states do and should have control over their electoral process but as I read more, I have to agree with the judges. If they want a change, it is time for an amendment.

Kennedy’s concurring opinion is also a brilliant and accurate analysis of the nature of the Federal system and the relationship between the states and the Federal government.

 

[C_Clayton_Jones]

One of right wing pundit Mark Levin's

Levin is technically controlled opposite, like Micheal Savage Lite. He seems reluctant to discuss the zionist lobby groups that control the politicians. The lobby groups is who they report to, not individual American so term limits really don't matter.

And for good reason.

Like most conservatives Levin may be crazy but not stupid.

 

[konradv]

I don't like the idea of someone telling me who I'm allowed to vote for. How is that freedom? If we want to do something about too many incumbents winning, we should take out their monetary advantage and go to public financing of elections.

 

[Dont Taz Me Bro]

I don't like the idea of someone telling me who I'm allowed to vote for. How is that freedom?

They tell you that now.

If we want to do something about too many incumbents winning, we should take out their monetary advantage and go to public financing of elections.

Which would only result in more incumbents getting reelected at a higher rate, so I fail to see how that solves the issue.

 

[Unkotare]

Congressional term limits should be imposed on election day, not via legislation.

 

[Dont Taz Me Bro]

Something that would help immensely is repealing the Reapportionment Act of 1929 and expanding the size of the U.S. House by at least 100%, maybe 200%. None of us are really being represented. You can't be represented when you're one person crammed into a district of 700,000 people. That's too diverse and large a group for one person to effectively represent in Congress. Districts somewhere between 100k and 200k constituents would better ground our representatives in reality to our needs and concerns. It also would greatly dilute the influence of lobbyists.

 

[Unkotare]

Something that would help immensely is repealing the Reapportionment Act of 1929 and expanding the size of the U.S. House by at least 100%, maybe 200%. None of us are really being represented. You can't be represented when you're one person crammed into a district of 700,000 people. That's too diverse and large a group for one person to effectively represent in Congress. Districts somewhere between 100k and 200k constituents would better ground our representatives in reality to our needs and concerns. It also would greatly dilute the influence of lobbyists.

And Congress would hold session in FedEx Field?

 

[Unkotare]

I don't like the idea of someone telling me who I'm allowed to vote for. How is that freedom? If we want to do something about too many incumbents winning, we should take out their monetary advantage and go to public financing of elections.

Public financing would not take monetary advantage out of the system, it would just give it to the incumbent and guarantee corruption on both sides.

 

[blackhawk]

One of the first steps to fixing Washington is for the people to fix themselves by that I mean we have to start holding the people we support and members of our own party to the same standard we want to hold the other party too stop condemning one side for the questionable morale and in some cases illegal actions of it's people while rationalizing and justifying the same actions by their own people. We will never even start to fix this greedy and corrupt government until the people on both sides get past this it's only wrong when the other side does it way of thinking.

 

[konradv]

I don't like the idea of someone telling me who I'm allowed to vote for. How is that freedom?

They tell you that now.

If we want to do something about too many incumbents winning, we should take out their monetary advantage and go to public financing of elections.

Which would only result in more incumbents getting reelected at a higher rate, so I fail to see how that solves the issue.

How would cutting off incumbents' money advantage lead to more of them getting re-elected? That doesn't make any sense. Explain.

 

[Euroconservativ]

If a Senator is...

1) Charismatic
2) Not a Republican in a deep blue state, not a Democrat in a deep red state
3) Makes no major mistakes

He/she has a very good chance to stay in office for life

 

[The2ndAmendment]

Doing away with gerrymandered districts would help, but that would only apply to the House.

Wouldn't be useful unless you uncap the House simultaneously. 1 Rep per 30,000 Citizens is how it should be, not 1 per 700,000.

 

[eagle1462010]

The Federalist Papers No. 53

There are other considerations, of less importance, perhaps, but which are not unworthy of notice. The distance which many of the representatives will be obliged to travel, and the arrangements rendered necessary by that circumstance, might be much more serious objections with fit men to this service, if limited to a single year, than if extended to two years. No argument can be drawn on this subject, from the case of the delegates to the existing Congress. They are elected annually, it is true; but their re-election is considered by the legislative assemblies almost as a matter of course. The election of the representatives by the people would not be governed by the same principle. A few of the members, as happens in all such assemblies, will possess superior talents; will, by frequent reelections, become members of long standing; will be thoroughly masters of the public business, and perhaps not unwilling to avail themselves of those advantages. The greater the proportion of new members, and the less the information of the bulk of the members the more apt will they be to fall into the snares that may be laid for them. This remark is no less applicable to the relation which will subsist between the House of Representatives and the Senate. It is an inconvenience mingled with the advantages of our frequent elections even in single States, where they are large, and hold but one legislative session in a year, that spurious elections cannot be investigated and annulled in time for the decision to have its due effect. If a return can be obtained, no matter by what unlawful means, the irregular member, who takes his seat of course, is sure of holding it a sufficient time to answer his purposes. Hence, a very pernicious encouragement is given to the use of unlawful means, for obtaining irregular returns. Were elections for the federal legislature to be annual, this practice might become a very serious abuse, particularly in the more distant States. Each house is, as it necessarily must be, the judge of the elections, qualifications, and returns of its members; and whatever improvements may be suggested by experience, for simplifying and accelerating the process in disputed cases, so great a portion of a year would unavoidably elapse, before an illegitimate member could be dispossessed of his seat, that the prospect of such an event would be little check to unfair and illicit means of obtaining a seat. All these considerations taken together warrant us in affirming, that biennial elections will be as useful to the affairs of the public as we have seen that they will be safe to the liberty of the people.

 

[editec]

We need to expand the size of the House of Representatives.

Every rep ought to represent no more than 30,000 people.

that would mean a HoR or about 1000.

And then let's talk about time limits.

but uintil we decide that money does not equal free speech?

Nothing we do is going to fix our nation.

We (or more realistically our Masters tools at SCOTUS) have committed DEMOCRATIC SUICIDE

 

[eagle1462010]

Americans Call for Term Limits, End to Electoral College

Virtually no partisan disagreement on these long-discussed constitutional reforms
by Lydia Saad
PRINCETON, NJ -- Even after the 2012 election in which Americans re-elected most of the sitting members of the U.S. House and Senate -- as is typical in national elections -- three-quarters of Americans say that, given the opportunity, they would vote "for" term limits for members of both houses of Congress.

Americans' Support for Establishing Term Limits for Federal Lawmakers, January 2013

Republicans and independents are slightly more likely than Democrats to favor term limits; nevertheless, the vast majority of all party groups agree on the issue. Further, Gallup finds no generational differences in support for the proposal.

These findings, from Gallup Daily tracking conducted Jan. 8-9, are similar to those from 1994 to 1996 Gallup polls, in which between two-thirds and three-quarters of Americans said they would vote for a constitutional amendment to limit the number of terms that members of Congress and the U.S. Senate can serve.

More Than Six in 10 Would Abolish Electoral College

Americans are nearly as open to major electoral reform when it comes to doing away with the Electoral College. Sixty-three percent would abolish this unique, but sometimes controversial, mechanism for electing presidents that was devised by the framers of the Constitution. While constitutional and statutory revisions have been made to the Electoral College since the nation's founding, numerous efforts to abolish it over the last 200+ years have met with little success.

There is even less partisan variation in support for this proposal than there is for term limits, with between 61% and 66% of all major party groups saying they would vote to do away with the Electoral College if they could. Similarly, between 60% and 69% of all major age groups take this position.

Americans' Support for Doing Away With U.S. Electoral College, January 2013

Gallup has asked Americans about the Electoral College in a number of ways over the years, and regardless of the precise phrasing, large majorities have always supported doing away with it. That includes 80% support in 1968 and 67% in 1980 with wording similar to what is used today.

Compared with today, support for abolishing it was slightly lower from 2000 through 2011, ranging from 59% to 62%, when using a question that asked Americans if they would rather amend the Constitution so the candidate who wins the most votes nationally wins the election, or keep the current system in which the winner is decided in the Electoral College.

Gallup trends show that Republicans were far less supportive than Democrats of abolishing the Electoral College in late 2000, when Republican presidential candidate George W. Bush had lost the popular vote, but was fighting a legal battle to win Florida and therefore the Electoral College. Since then, however, Republicans have gradually become less protective of the Electoral College, to the point that by 2011, a solid majority of Republicans were in favor of abolishing it.

Bottom Line

Large majorities of Americans are in favor of establishing term limits for members of the U.S. House and Senate, and doing away with the Electoral College. Despite sharp polarization of the parties on many issues in 21st century politics, Republicans and Democrats broadly agree on both longstanding election reform proposals.

Survey Methods
Results for this Gallup poll are based on telephone interviews conducted as part of the Gallup Daily tracking survey Jan. 8-9, 2013, with a random sample of 1,013 adults, aged 18 and older, living in all 50 U.S. states and the District of Columbia.

For results based on the total sample of national adults, one can say with 95% confidence that the maximum margin of sampling error is ±4 percentage points.

Interviews are conducted with respondents on landline telephones and cellular phones, with interviews conducted in Spanish for respondents who are primarily Spanish-speaking. Each sample includes a minimum quota of 500 cellphone respondents and 500 landline respondents per 1,000 national adults, with additional minimum quotas by region. Landline telephone numbers are chosen at random among listed telephone numbers. Cellphone numbers are selected using random-digit-dial methods. Landline respondents are chosen at random within each household on the basis of which member had the most recent birthday.

Samples are weighted by gender, age, race, Hispanic ethnicity, education, region, adults in the household, population density, and phone status (cellphone only/landline only/both, cellphone mostly, and having an unlisted landline number). Demographic weighting targets are based on the March 2012 Current Population Survey figures for the aged 18 and older non-institutionalized population living in U.S. telephone households. All reported margins of sampling error include the computed design effects for weighting.

In addition to sampling error, question wording and practical difficulties in conducting surveys can introduce error or bias into the findings of public opinion polls.

 

[eagle1462010]

The Federalist Papers - THOMAS (Library of Congress)

First. It is a misfortune incident to republican government, though in a less degree than to other governments, that those who administer it may forget their obligations to their constituents, and prove unfaithful to their important trust. In this point of view, a senate, as a second branch of the legislative assembly, distinct from, and dividing the power with, a first, must be in all cases a salutary check on the government. It doubles the security to the people, by requiring the concurrence of two distinct bodies in schemes of usurpation or perfidy, where the ambition or corruption of one would otherwise be sufficient. This is a precaution founded on such clear principles, and now so well understood in the United States, that it would be more than superfluous to enlarge on it. I will barely remark, that as the improbability of sinister combinations will be in proportion to the dissimilarity in the genius of the two bodies, it must be politic to distinguish them from each other by every circumstance which will consist with a due harmony in all proper measures, and with the genuine principles of republican government.

A good government implies two things: first, fidelity to the object of government, which is the happiness of the people; secondly, a knowledge of the means by which that object can be best attained. Some governments are deficient in both these qualities; most governments are deficient in the first. I scruple not to assert, that in American governments too little attention has been paid to the last. The federal Constitution avoids this error; and what merits particular notice, it provides for the last in a mode which increases the security for the first.

Fourthly. The mutability in the public councils arising from a rapid succession of new members, however qualified they may be, points out, in the strongest manner, the necessity of some stable institution in the government. Every new election in the States is found to change one half of the representatives. From this change of men must proceed a change of opinions; and from a change of opinions, a change of measures. But a continual change even of good measures is inconsistent with every rule of prudence and every prospect of success. The remark is verified in private life, and becomes more just, as well as more important, in national transactions.

The internal effects of a mutable policy are still more calamitous. It poisons the blessing of liberty itself. It will be of little avail to the people, that the laws are made by men of their own choice, if the laws be so voluminous that they cannot be read, or so incoherent that they cannot be understood; if they be repealed or revised before they are promulgated, or undergo such incessant changes that no man, who knows what the law is to-day, can guess what it will be to-morrow. Law is defined to be a rule of action; but how can that be a rule, which is little known, and less fixed?

Another effect of public instability is the unreasonable advantage it gives to the sagacious, the enterprising, and the moneyed few over the industrious and uniformed mass of the people. Every new regulation concerning commerce or revenue, or in any way affecting the value of the different species of property, presents a new harvest to those who watch the change, and can trace its consequences; a harvest, reared not by themselves, but by the toils and cares of the great body of their fellow-citizens. This is a state of things in which it may be said with some truth that laws are made for the FEW, not for the MANY.

 

[eagle1462010]

Riddle me this.......................................................

Which side of the arguments do you decide to choose?

Do you push the view that we need an EXPERIENCED CONGRESS so we don't look like a fool on the INTERNATIONAL SCENE?

Do you push the view on how a SEASONED POLITICIAN can scam a NEW AND INEXPERIENCED POLITICIAN?

Do you push the view that that those who administer it may forget their obligations to their constituents, and prove unfaithful to their important trust?

Do you push the view that we now have a Government of MUTABLE POLICY?

COMMENTS

I'm for Term Limits as CIRCUMSTANCES push me to the opinion that our Congress has availed itself to the interest of the people. They have become SELF SERVING and have DISAVOWED themselves of the will of the people. They are more concerned with POWER AND GREED than they are of their OBLIGATION TO SERVE THE PEOPLE. aka How to get political dollars from Lobbyists to maintain their power than their........................................

OATH OF OFFICE.

The internal effects of a mutable policy are still more calamitous. It poisons the blessing of liberty itself. It will be of little avail to the people, that the laws are made by men of their own choice, if the laws be so voluminous that they cannot be read, or so incoherent that they cannot be understood; if they be repealed or revised before they are promulgated, or undergo such incessant changes that no man, who knows what the law is to-day, can guess what it will be to-morrow. Law is defined to be a rule of action; but how can that be a rule, which is little known, and less fixed?

I agree with this statement. I believe it is going on now, and believe that most of the NATION believes this as well. 15% approval rate for Congress. 75% in favor of TERM LIMITS.

Which is exactly why on other threads of this nature I've stated we can test the waters of a Constitutional Convention on THIS TOPIC FIRST. Because the people are SICK AND TIRED OF CAPITOL HILL and CAREER POLITICIANS. They are tired of the ENDLESS BS from both parties.

So, I DO BELIEVE THIS ONE WILL PASS if put forward.

I believe we are ruled by MUTABLE POLICIES of the best Congress MONEY CAN BUY.

Furthermore, I posted data for and against via the founders. The question is which of the points of Founders will YOU CHOOSE on this subject.

I will end with the following comment. A law SO INCOHERENT that they cannot be understood. Sound familiar. Who knows what the law is to-day, can guess what it will be to-morrow.

Absolute proof, in my view, that we are ruled by MUTABLE POLICY.

 

[Vox]

The problem I have with term limits is that it then puts politicians in office who have absolutely no reason to fear about being reelected. And that's the only thing that restrains some of them to actually listen to their constituents.

Perhaps we could keep things the same for House members and put term limits on Senators, who weren't supposed to represent the people in the first place.

Agreed. Senators should be limited and we should start with those

 

[Vox]

I would not touch electoral college. The moment you abolish it - the moment you sign in the dictatorship to occur.

 

[eagle1462010]

I would not touch electoral college. The moment you abolish it - the moment you sign in the dictatorship to occur.

I have mixed feelings on this. It is a Catch 22 to me via your statement above, but at the same time knowing that 4 States carry SO MUCH OF THE VOTE.

An area I'm undecided on.