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The Argument for Term Limits
President Elect Trump recently had an interesting idea: drain the swamp. Term limits for elected politicians would allow far more turnover, which would in turn allow for a greater diversity of politicians to be elected. It is almost a no-brainer when you consider how many benefits the incumbent politician has over the challenger.
If term limits are a no-brainer then why don’t we have them already? By far the most popular explanation is simply that politicians will not vote to term limit themselves; therefore we cannot get term limits. This is obviously an oversimplification, however. Surely if term limits are obviously good, then some ambitious politician would support them in order to build his or her reputation as a principled individual. This leads to the second explanation: term limits are actually bad.
A 2006 study conducted by the NCSL is often cited as a comprehensive discussion of the negative impact of term limits. It is a “study” that is conducted by a fancy sounding organization with a four-letter acronym. Furthermore, it comes in PDF; just like a real scientific article. Here is part of the introduction discussing their methodology,
To complete this project, the National Conference of State Legislatures, the Council of State Governments, the State Legislative Leaders Foundation and a group of distinguished political scientists from universities around the country worked together for three years, conducting an in-depth study of the effects of legislative term limits. The findings of the study are based on the results of two major surveys; a collection of data on the individual characteristics of all state legislators; interviews with hundreds of legislators, legislative staff and other observers of the legislative process; and a large body of data on the legislative process compiled from nine states.
That certainly sounds official and “sciency!” How could we dirt farming plebes possibly argue with that? Except that it is totally questionable. This isn’t physics or chemistry where there were control groups and a concerted effort by many different research groups to refute the theory as occurs in real scientific practice. This is political science done with subjective interviews, “expert” opinions, and a couple of surveys. We shouldn’t pretend that this is Einstein proving gravitational lensing. It most definitely is not.
A cynical interpretation of this description is that the study was conducted and supported by technocrats, bureaucrats, and career politicians; all of which have reason to oppose term limits. Can we really trust the opinions of people like this? Obviously we should approach all information skeptically, but this smacks of opinion wrapped up in the garb of “science”. This group has the right to protect their positions just as we have the right to argue against it.
Let’s take a look at what it actually says in the study. I found two angles repeatedly used by the study that supposedly reveal negatives: (1) legislatures are too complicated for term limits because they make the learning curve too steep for newly elected politicians and (2) term limits encourages uncivil behavior between legislators. As we shall see, both of these are a matter of perspective.
The go-to criticism of term limits is that it leads to uninformed lawmakers. According to this criticism, lawmaking is like being a doctor or engineer in that it requires a form of expertise. You wouldn’t let just anyone perform heart surgery or fix your car’s engine, so why would you let just anyone participate in the legislature? They really want this to scare us, so they even go so far as to claim that new and ignorant lawmakers are easier to manipulate by the evil lobbyists.
However, is it really the case that we need experts to run our lives? That doesn’t sound right at all. As far as I am concerned, I am an expert on my own life. Being a lawmaker simply isn’t the same as being a doctor or an engineer. It’s a bad analogy. Similarly, what kind of legislative system do we have that requires such intense expertise? Is that really what the founders had in mind: a massively complex bureaucracy that can only be understood and operated by people who have dedicated their lives to the pursuit of political power alone? I don’t think so. They even go so far as to claim that 12-year term limits are not enough time for lawmakers to become sufficiently acquainted with the process! 12 years is too short a time?!? If that’s true, the system is in need of an overhaul anyway.
The second criticism is that term limits make the legislators uncivil towards one another. There are two parts to this: (1) term limits make new lawmakers more likely to challenge their party elders for leadership and (2) term limits make bipartisan committees more political and partisan and prevent the different sides from working together to perform their legislative function. That sounds bad, right? I don’t think so.
Term limits remove the tenure system for leadership selection. Without term limits the lawmakers have to wait for their turn to be a leader. It also makes new lawmakers bolder in opposition to current leaders because they know that the leader cannot punish them down the line. Now think about that for a minute: is it really appropriate that there is a tenure system in the first place? Shouldn’t we want the best lawmaker to be the leader regardless of the amount of time he has put in? Tenure removes accountability, which is pretty much anti-merit. Also, wouldn’t fear of punishment down the line encourage our lawmakers to blindly follow the leader? How can that possibly be construed as a real benefit?
Term limits also supposedly make bipartisan committees less civil. Apparently, committees are supposed to be fun, safe spaces, where everyone works together to pass laws and grow the government. What about the duty of lawmakers to represent their constituents and oppose ideas that conflict with their stated ideology? It sounds like committees are currently places where everyone goes along to get along. That’s nice and all but… doesn’t that encourage groupthink? Isn’t that how we got our national debt so high in the first place? Personally, I want our lawmakers to fight in committees and stand on principle. Isn’t that how it is supposed to be? The system is rigged in a number of different ways, and term limits won’t fix all the problems. It is however a good start.
Published in General
Term limits are an effective way of limiting the power of higher governments. For example, think what Obama would do if he wasn’t term limited.
I’ve been on and off over the years on term limits. I’m in a fairly extended “off” period where that I don’t think they are a great idea on balance. One of my primary issues with term limits is that it puts the center-right at a disadvantage because we have a hard enough time competing with the military and private industry for talented people without increasing the demand through term limited. The left has a seeming inexhaustible supply of talented statists who are ready, willing, and able to join the political class for the purpose of ruling our lives in the name of social justice.
If it were up to me, I’d double down and even get rid of term limits at the presidential level. The 22nd amendment certainly didn’t improve the quality of presidential candidates/presidents and we still have this horrible imperial presidency.
Time to get rid of both the 17th and 22nd amendments. Turns out the founders had it right the first time around.
I have some other thoughts on possibly improving the legislative process:
-No Congress critter may own property within 75 miles of Washington DC unless they represent a district or state within that distance. Might have the consequence of limiting the attractiveness of being in Congress if you have to be a renter.
– Limit the time that Congress is actually in session each year – 6 or 7 months might be a good place to start…make ’em go home and mix with the people they are supposed to represent.
Under the current arrangement, we elect a congress critter who promptly moves to DC where it is easy to become seduced by the Beltway Bubble mentality and the only time their district/State sees them is when elections roll around again.
Not a comprehensive list but sort of out of the box attempts to get to the same goal.
Thoughts?
Which founders? The ones who favored term limits or the ones who were opposed?
Another reform I would make: Double the salaries of members of Congress, increase pensions for short-term members of Congress, and cut their staff budgets in half.
I wonder if there isn’t something in there for the executive branch. Having all of those cabinet and other level agencies being based in Washington, D.C just leads to a bureaucratic herd mentality. What about uprooting them from DC and spreading them throughout the country. Fine, you keep the really mission critical agencies in the DC metro area like State, Treasury, and Defense, but send the rest of them packing into the country to mix with the people they are supposed to be serving.
Put the Department of Agriculture in Liberal, Kansas. Send the Department of Veterans affairs in Tucson, Arizona. Put Commerce in Guam Send Interior to Rapid City, South Dakota, etc.
The ones who formed the necessary consensus to ratify the final document and establish a system that worked just fine until we made things worse with the 17th and 22nd amendments.
You have to start somewhere :).
I love talking about the amazing revolutionary movement for school choice, which started when homeschoolers bucked the law as late as the 80’s and early 90’s. People were jailed for schooling their own kids, court cases followed, and eventually, government backed off.
Getting the constitution ratified was more of a railroad job than consensus. After ratification was in place a few years it became more of a consensus.
And if I thought term limits would be a start, I’d be amenable to them.
Legislators and Executives are not the same position. I am more amenable to term limits for executives. This is probably why 36 states have executive term limits, but only 15 have legislative. The two are not the same. The legislature is supposed to have pro-active power to make law -even in Strong Governor System states. That is, the legislature is supposed to run the state, not the executive. And so a term limited executive, who has to defer to the legislature for instruction and expertise, is a good thing. A term limited legislature that has to defer to the governor and executive branch for expertise is taking the first steps on the road to monarchical control.
Severe term limits have this problem. Modest term limits do not.
I’ve wanted term limits since the 80s, mainly to force those bozos to go back home and actually live under the cockamamie laws they pass. I like the original concept of citizen legislators, where you serve for a couple of years and go home. And it should be true “service,” like the military, without a huge salary. And no huge pension and no Gold Standard health insurance. You voted for Obamacare? You have it for your own insurance, Bozo. To solve the learning curve problem, we could make the term for the House a year or two longer.
Yes. Lawmakers should have to live with the laws that they pass, and they should have to live among the people to whom the laws apply. I’m not sure what the best method to get there is: Term limits? Limited legislative sessions? No exempting legislators from statutes (I am amazed at how many laws that have exemptions for legislators)? No pensions or other benefits (but that could increase the opportunity for corruption)?
I recall hearing a former politician speak (unfortunately I can’t remember who) who had been all in favor of laws regulating business when he was in political office. But after leaving office, he tried to open a business (I think it was an inn or hotel) and was stymied by the many regulations that were required. He gave up the business dream with a belated realization that the laws he passed hurt people.
Define modest. The effects kick in at anything less than 12 years.
I think it was George McGovern. I think I read years ago that he went back to Colorado and opened a ski resort or something like it, and he admitted in an interview that if he’d had any idea what it took to run a business, he’d never have supported half the laws he voted for. Trump should dig up that soundbite and show it everywhere.
Mr. Adams, I like the cut of your jib sir!
I used to be of the mind that the voting box was our term limit device and why would we want to get rid of someone who was doing a good job?
I’ve since personally evolved to consider the advantages of incumbency to be almost bullet-proof and if we lose a good candidate once in a great while due to them aging out, so it can be if that’s our escape vector for the people that ensconce themselves into the system and seal our fate for decades at a time.
Something like that. I was thinking either McGovern or McCarthy, and Minnesota instead of Colorado, but I agree that digging up the video (if it exists) would be very useful.
I favor term limits. We never really know who our representatives are. I remember when the Gingrich-led Republican Congress debated term-limiting Federal offices and Henry Hyde (I think it was) opposed the measure because “we need giants” in Congress, not ordinary people. Such self-serving pomposity. I would prefer an amendment that declared each state could set its own rules for term-limiting their representatives and senators. That way, experimentation and adjustment can happen.
Unfortunately, with the increasing ‘importance’ of government, the corruption of incumbancy would run deep (if not already there) within the states, as well.
It was George McGovern, and the Wall Street Journal did an article some years ago. Here is a link with commentary.
The problem with that is the representatives who need to be term-limited are not the ones in our own state, but those in other states who use the power of incumbency to get more than their share of federal power and money. I’m a big fan of term limits but would campaign against term limits that would affect only my own state of Michigan and not Ted Kennedy’s or Nancy Pelosi’s districts.
Twelve years sounds about right, but where do you get that number? I’d say maybe 3 terms for members of the Senate and 6 or 7 terms for members of the House. Harry Reid was elected to the Senate for 6 successive terms. Three would have been sufficient for any benefits to outweigh the downside of continuity and experience.
This reminds me, an excellent book on this topic is Pauline Maier’s Ratification: The People Debate the Constitution, 1787-1788 . A lot of the people on our side who appeal loudly to the Constitution could benefit from knowing more about the actual process of getting a constitution, some of which is in this book.
Ratification was railroaded through the states, much like ObamaCare was railroaded through Congress. The opponents to ratification had a lot in common with those of our present-day constitutionalists who want a more limited government. However, one reason they were unsuccessful in stopping the Constitution or imposing more limitations on the powers of the federal government was they were disorganized and couldn’t agree on an alternative, much like those who are opposed to ObamaCare can’t agree on an alternative.
The opposition died away after the new Constitution had been in place a few years, because the new nation was prospering and the worst fears of the opponents didn’t come to pass. It wasn’t until more recent times that the defects they had warned about started hurting us.
Who gets to decide if the budget is balanced? What happens if the budget is balanced, but Congress overspends the budget?
Few years in and then go back to your profession. That’s the way the founding fathers wanted it.
Great first entry Kristoffer. Hope to see you again at the next FreedomFest!
My apologies if this has been covered, but when the Founders wrote the Constitution, they envisioned a much more limited role for the federal goverment. After the first few decades if the twentieth century, various Amendments and Supreme Court rulings vastly expanded the powers and scope of the federal government.
At that point, it became a lot easier to use the office to stay in office. Incumbents have a vast apparatus to distribute goodies that challengers lack. I would love to make the entire issue moot by repealing the Sixteenth Amendment and eradicating the regulatory state, but barring that, I will take term limits as a straightforward, doable, easy to explain method of reforming the federal government.
I agree with Mark Twain who said “Politicians and diapers should be frequently changed, both for the same reason” …
However I dont like term limits, I think the better reform would be to end Gerrymandering, when you design a district by demographically mapping its constituents you make a safe seat for 1 party or the other – but you also make candidates that pander to the extremist elements of their base. (aka primary election voters) As congressional democrats have been declining, the senior congressmen have been gaining stature within the democrat party, and driving it from centrist social-democrat to the moon batty.
If you stop gerrymandering, you get the nuts out of congress, and replace them with reasonable people who can work on policy without firebombs.
I’m not a fan of gerrymandering either, but there is going to be some process to reapportion congressional and state legislative seats. The bigger problem is the desire to gather and hold onto power without limit.
12 years (6 terms House, 2 terms Senate) sounds about right. Structurally we need to encourage the impulse to hold power loosely, since you aren’t going to be able to hold onto it ad infinitum. As in many things, G. Washington’s example is a good one; lay aside virtual dictatorial power at the end of the Revolution, then serve as President long enough to let the cement harden and go home. We aren’t always going to have George Washington & his ilk to lead us; best to set up a structure that limits the damage that the rascals can do.
I keep saying that as long as politicians have power, there will be corruption. The most effective way to limit corruption is to limit the power of the politicians. Unfortunately, few people are inclined to limit their own power, so it takes outside force to do so.
California has remarkably short term limits (six years for Assembly, and eight years for state senate). I think we could have a federal term limit Amendment that could be longer (for example, six terms and two or three terms), which would avoid a lot of the problems you discuss.
The issue is that term limits would play out differently on the federal level, where Senators are not assigned on a per-capita basis. Some eighteen states have four or fewer Congressmen, so the competition for Senate seats would not be bad. But Congressmen from California or Texas might feel the need to make a big splash to stand out (although that is likely already part of the problem).
Seems to me the real problem, at least where Congress is concerned, is that it’s even possible to make a living at it. That’s not how it should work. The job should pay very little, and Congress should be in session for maybe a few weeks a year. That way nobody would make a career of it; they’d all have other careers, and they’d be in Congress because they wanted to serve.
Of course, for this approach to be possible, the government would have to do much, much less. Which brings us to the real root of the problem.