Proposing an amendment to the Constitution of the United States

[EvilMonkey]

I dont see the big problem with letting people run as many times as they want.

 

If the person is the best for the job, why should we be denied them just because they only get 8 years?

Incumbents should be docked pay for any time they spend campaigning to be rehired. During the last 18 months before an election, not much gets done unless it is to buy votes. That's called incumbent protection. Just look at how many things Blaog is promising and signing before his election with Judy. He is buying votes, as all incumbents do to some extent.

[Texsox]

So we throw out the good because of a small number of crooks? SS, do you think you would be a better or worse school board member on day one or day 3,0001?

[southsider2k5]

So we throw out the good because of a small number of crooks? SS, do you think you would be a better or worse school board member on day one or day 3,0001?

 

I am an absolute believer that the law of diminishing marginal returns stands true. There becomes a point where they longer to do something, the less effective you are at it. I really believe our school board is out of touch with the community because they have been in front of mics for too long, and not in the community. Turnover is good in politics and you need not look any further than our current Congress to see that.

[Texsox]

I am an absolute believer that the law of diminishing marginal returns stands true. There becomes a point where they longer to do something, the less effective you are at it. I really believe our school board is out of touch with the community because they have been in front of mics for too long, and not in the community. Turnover is good in politics and you need not look any further than our current Congress to see that.

 

Why doesn't that hold true for private industry? Would corporations be better if they dumped 1/3 of their employees every year?

[NorthSideSox72]

I don't believe the problem is that there are lobbyists. There have to be lobbyists - its political organization for a cause. There is no stopping that.

 

The problem lies in what we allow Congress and other policy-makers to accept from them. To me, there needs to be a strict limitation (and accounting of) ANYTHING received from anyone not a family member or close friend (not just money - meals, transportation and travel, gifts, etc.). And the other side of the coin - all of them need to disclose how each of those peoples' organizations are connected to ANYTHING that the official voted on (sort of like stock pickers on TV having to say whether or not they own any of that stock). As a final piece to this, enforcement - the the GAO or OMB need to have officials whose sole job is to track all that information, make it available to the public, and investigate questionable issues.

[southsider2k5]

Why doesn't that hold true for private industry? Would corporations be better if they dumped 1/3 of their employees every year?

 

Doesn't it? When I think of the least productive employees at places I have worked, the majority of them are guys who have been there the longest, and don't think they have to work as hard because of it.

[FlaSoxxJim]

I am an absolute believer that the law of diminishing marginal returns stands true. There becomes a point where they longer to do something, the less effective you are at it. I really believe our school board is out of touch with the community because they have been in front of mics for too long, and not in the community. Turnover is good in politics and you need not look any further than our current Congress to see that.

 

I agree completely with this assessment. That goes for the governance boards of corporations and non-profits as well. Unless reasonable term limits are put in place ensuring a reasonable turnover you are left with either a do-nothing worthless board or an entrenched board full of cronies that loses site of what they are there for.

 

In national politics today I think term limits remain important and necessary when you have an America that I so polarized. 51% or 52% of the vote isn't a mandate no matter which side wins an election. Allowing the political machinery of an incumbent to keep manufacturing 1% and 2% wins term aftter term would not in any way indicate we had the best person on the job, merely that they had the best re-election machinery.

[Balta1701]

I agree completely with this assessment. That goes for the governance boards of corporations and non-profits as well. Unless reasonable term limits are put in place ensuring a reasonable turnover you are left with either a do-nothing worthless board or an entrenched board full of cronies that loses site of what they are there for.

 

In national politics today I think term limits remain important and necessary when you have an America that I so polarized. 51% or 52% of the vote isn't a mandate no matter which side wins an election. Allowing the political machinery of an incumbent to keep manufacturing 1% and 2% wins term aftter term would not in any way indicate we had the best person on the job, merely that they had the best re-election machinery.

The one problem one can run into with Term Limits though is the problem California has run smack into. With term limits, you force out of office any and all of the actual experienced legislators every x number of years. Out here, this has had the effect of a much more partisan and divided state legislature, because the experienced legislators who work their way up by knowing how to deal with the other side or by actually making deals on legislation get pushed out of office. When that happens, you then wind up with them being replaced by whichever person wins the primary for that particular party in that district...and when you have the gerrymandered mess that this state and this country does...those "safe" districts wind up almost always giving you the most partisan candidate possible coming out of it.

 

In other words, the term limits out here have wound up basically creating a do-nothing, fairly worthless legislature that has no interest in doing whats best for the state.

[Texsox]

With term limits comes an even greater polarization of American when the leaders are interchangeable, the parties will mean everything. It will be the parties that create and maintain the machinery necessary to hold power. The individual, and his abilities, will be secondary. The people who get people elected will be the most powerful people around, and you will have zero input in who they are. The cadidates will have to be talking heads for the party. The incumbent will never have any power beyond what the party allows.

 

We already have term limits. Every 2 to 6 years a person is up for re-election. If the voters in that district are too stupid to figure out if the guy is doing a good job or not, isn't that a terrible indictment of the democratic process? With term limits we are telling the American public, you can't make a good decision, we'll decide how long someone can serve you.