Term Limits

B

Bronco

500+ Posts
This is not an attack on BO, he just happens to be the current President.

But after watching some campaining it seems more obvious tha ever we need strict term limits to move our country forward.

BO is out on the campain trail bashing everything he can think of, especially anything Romney or Republican. Boehenr spouts off. Pelosi spouts off. On and on.

Meanwhile, the US loses. None of these idiots needs to be able to run again. Let the new candidates battle it out if they want to, but force the actual elected folks do their job, which is running the country.

Campaining used to be a good thing. It gave the electorate information about the different candidates and their ideas and agendas. Now it is simply mudslinging. Now we have gridlock in the very time we actually need leadership.

I am convinced that erm limits on congress, the senate and even a stricter one for the pres, is the only way our system can change.
 
I definitely support term limits. The power of incumbency is too much of an advantage in elections.
 
We also really need to limit the monies that SuperPacs are pouring in. We also need to ensure full disclosure.

These are prerequisites for good governance.
 
The problem with term limits is they would not affect the thousands of bureaucracies who pump out millions of pages of regulations and are the worst offenders when it comes to gumming up the free enterprise system in the private sector.

With that said, I agree we don't need to be paying people like Lloyd Dogshit (not to mention Pelosi, Reed, and the rest) to have a lifelong career in DC. But in addition to term limiting the pigs in congress we also must find a way to root out the faceless, unelected bureaucrats who further parasitize the American people.
 
Need campaign finance reform for sure. Put a cap on money allowed to be spent and where it can come from. I am thinking they should put the primaries in some kind of random order. Tired for instance of Texans not having much input during primaries b/c the candidate list has been narrowed so far down at that point. Make election day a national holiday....need to get as many voters to vote. Shorter terms for Senate members with term limits for both House and Senate.
 
California has had term limits on its Legislature for over 20 years. Do you term limits supporters like how things work out there? Do you think they elect more ethical people? Do you think special interest groups wield less clout in California than in other states or less clout in California than they did before the state enacted term limits? Are they electing "citizen legislators" out there?

We don't need term limits. We need the voters to care about ethics again. If that doesn't change, it won't matter if don't let anybody serve more than one term in office.
 
Term limits might not reduce or limit the corruption but at least the elected officials could actually pretend to be working for us. Obama has been campaigning since 2009 and virtually all congressmen spend a year of their 2 year terms campaigning. If we had one term limits there would be no campaigning by current officials and no reason for any pensions, retirements, and other expensive benefits. Sure the drastic change would also alter the type of person interested in running but that's not a bad thing either.
 
Considering the two we have running for President there has to be a better way to put the best and the brightest in office. Did the American people REALLY think Obama was qualified for the job? Really?
 
Perham and Pharm, what were the key points on Obama's resume that told you he was qualified to be the leader of the Free World?
 
Gotta concur with Shiner and the Blood of Orange. Obama's qualifications to be President were nominal at best. (However, I'm not going to claim Sarah Palin's were any better.)
 
To get things functioning again we must get back to electing reasonable and rational people who once in power continue to behave in reasonable and rational ways. To a large extent this means limiting the disproportionate power of the right and left wingnuts, as well as that of the single issue voters. Term limits do not address this, but how district boundaries are drawn would address this.

Term limits are a farce because we would lose too much institutional knowledge (not all bad!) thus placing more power in the hands of unelected bureaucrats and special interest lobbyists. Also, term limits for representative bodies (U.S. House of Representatives and the state house) actually disenfranchise the people of any district where the majority of the district feels well represented by their rep and would actually like to keep him/her. However, for those bodies that do not explicitly represent the people like the Senate and President (senate represents the states & president represents the country) term limits are fine with me.

My belief is similar to a previous poster's, the answer lies within how district borders for both US Congressional districts and state representatives are drawn. So much could be solved by a relatively simple law stating that district borders be drawn using an objective hierarchy where political considerations such as socio-economic and / or racial considerations of the population cannot be taken into consideration. While not a panacea, the following hierarchy would be reasonable (and drive both parties absolutely crazy!). Except where precluded by shared borders with neighboring states or nations each district’s borders must:

1. Contain the mandated number of people.

2. In county’s containing Less than the mandated number of people to be represented by a district, a county cannot be divided among more than 2 districts.

3. In county’s containing MORE than the mandated number of people to be represented by a district, no more than 1 district can reach beyond a county line.

4. Except where county lines (county borders) are used as district boundaries, all district boundary lines must be straight.

5. Except where county lines (county borders) are used as district boundaries, all district boundary outlines must contain at least 2 right angles and consist of no more than 5 lines.

6. Except where county lines are used as district boundaries, the mid-point of any one of the district’s border lines may not be more than 1.25 times further from the district’s geographic center than the mid-point of any other of the district’s boundary lines.


As far as presidential politics go, a big help would be ending “winner take all” apportionment of a state’s electoral college votes. Winner of the popular vote in a state would get the two senate seat votes for the state, the congressional seat votes would then be apportioned pro-rata. This would act to bring more states into play and take away the disproportionate power of the handful of swing states (Ohio, FL, CO, etc.).
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Recent Threads

Back
Top