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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
Talking to state legislators about how long it took them to learn their way around the legislature. Even groking the jurrisdictional rules for committees can take a full term.
I look forward to it and thanks for the appreciation.
I guess we can just shout wrong at each other all day, but if you know the guy is corrupt and the people keep voting for him, you kind of get the government you deserve.
Term limits are the lazy way out. We have to get the people interested in governing the governors.
I agree as a Michigander. I live in rural middle Michigan. My rep is Dan Kildee, nephew of Dale Kildee. Some of these seats have become heredity titled. My district includes Flint, a much different place that where I am at. I also think we need to revisit the ceiling of 435 seats in the HOR.
I also would like the state legislators to choose the Seantor again. We wouldn’t have had Carl Levin for so long, I hope. Mandatory retirement at 70 years.
Perhaps the rules have become so arcane because the legislators are around so long. Do the rules have to stay so complex?
Unfortunately, accepting nothing but the best usually prevents minor progress. Sometimes small steps can preclude further progress, as well.
I guess we are just doomed.
The rules aren’t that complex, it just isn’t something that has an analog anywhere else. It’s like any other job -you get better at doing it over time. Additionally, most state legislatures don’t meet full time (90 days every 2 years is common). If it took you a year (50 weeks, 5 days a week, 250 days) to learn the ropes at a normal job, that would take a legislator 3 years of sessions to match -which could be six years.
And that’s just learning the institutions inside the legislature. Oversight, writing laws for other agencies, and investigations require the legislators to know how other people work and do their jobs, and how agencies, laws, committees, and the governor interact with each other.
Again, these are great arguments for making government smaller, but if you the government doesn’t shrink at the same time, kneecapping the legislature does nothing to prevent the growth and makes it harder to handle the growth we’ve already had.
I’m afraid you are right. Our Constitution was the lazy way out, too. If we could get the people to behave better we wouldn’t need artificial limits on government.
There are good reasons to wish state legislators would choose the senators, but I doubt that would have kept Carl Levin from serving so long. He would have used the power of incumbency to get goodies for Michigan and for his Michigan cronies that our state legislators (or those who elected them) would have been unwilling to forego. That’s why we need term limits. Undoing the 17th amendment won’t fix that problem.
He is a good example of why we need term limits, though. He was elected to six successive terms. Three or four would have been enough. Even if the cap had been as high as four, that would have done a lot of good. It would have modified his behavior in terms 1-4.
Kneecapping the legislature could do a lot to prevent the growth of government. It has helped immensely here in Michigan. Not sure if anything can help California.
One problem is that with time and experience our legislators get better at doing the wrong things.
You aren’t paying any attention to what I’m saying. Or maybe I’m not saying it clearly enough. Would it help if I wrote it in Portuguese or Klingon? I’ll try again in English: If I know your guy is corrupt and is using the power of incumbency to screw over the rest of the country to benefit his own district, how do I change that? I only get to vote for people in my state. Or are you saying we should all be allowed to go and vote in as many elections around the country as we want to?
In an 18th century economy where aristocratic landlords didn’t need to do much actual work for a living, they could take time to serve in Congress the way you like. In the present-day economy even most of the rich who earned their own wealth cannot easily take time out from their careers to serve in Congress without taking a huge hit to their earning power. It’s especially bad in the IT business where if you pause you lose. (Personal example omitted.)
I think Congress should pay more for term-limited jobs to make it possible for people other than lawyers, trust fund babies, and the unemployed or underemployed to serve. Spend more on Congressional salaries for non-career politicians and reap massive savings on the budget.
That’s not how it works. Knowing the guy is corrupt is kind of like knowing that Hillary was corrupt but being more afraid of Donald Trump or any Republican. The commies do this all the time — they get control of the narrative and go after the decent people with any power in the country and tell lies about them. As a voter what you know about the guy is that he’s no worse and maybe better than the other guy.
petaQ
I think that is an infringement on the democratic rights of the people… It is an invasion of their democratic rights to vote for whoever they want to vote for and for however long.
Ronald Reagan, 1989
If Reagan said that, he was wrong. He didn’t understand that our Constitution has many such invasions of our rights, and is what has made our country great.
I have said this before also. It would also have a nice side effect of helping destroying public sector unions, which are the only type of union I think that should be illegal. I think something like 20 or 25 years (judges should always be 20 years). Maybe education being the exception since public funding is like 90% of the market (not that I am a fan of public funding of education).
If modern technology allows it, why due elected officials have to due their business in DC? I mean seriously we always make this silly argument at the number of votes a Senator has been away from the job. There is no reason why they could not vote from were ever in the world they are if the rules allowed it. Lets be honest the idea that floor speeches are actually to pursaud any elected officials is just silly, its only for public consumption.
I mean in Florida all the Cabinet meetings get schedule all around Florida. There is no reason sub-committees have to have all or even most of their in person meetings in Washington.
The date on that remark reminds me of another point that I had meant to bring up: It was good that even the best President of the 20th century was term-limited.
Perhaps because they aren’t a no-brainer? Probably the biggest contributor to the breakdown of our constitutional order is the transfer of power from the legislature to the executive. Legislative term limits exacerbate this problem as they impede the development of institutional identity and interest.
We have (and have had for a long time) 1) a lack of term limits in our legislative branch, and 2) a massive transfer of power to the executive branch to the point where the legislative branch is an almost irrelevant factor in lawmaking.
Please explain again the connection between these two.
I agree, and I specifically noted, that we have already experienced a massive transfer of power from the legislative to the executive branch. Term limits would exacerbate this problem. Lack of tenure in office reduces institutional identity. Just look at the tenure of career civil servants in the administrative state. I am in no way arguing that our current state of separation of powers is desirable. I am arguing that term limits would make things worse.
I know this is an unpopular opinion to hold, but I think it would be beneficial for our constitutional order if we were to revert to a system of strong legislative committees led by knowledgeable and long-term legislators with substantial degrees of independence from their party leadership.
Your solution does not address the problem of corruption due to incumbency. I’ll repeat myself for the 723,473,129th time so opponents of term limits can ignore it for the 723,473,129th time and set up their strawmen for the 723,473,130th time, but term limits do not have to be extreme to do good. In fact, they could be counterproductive. But modest term limits to keep people like Carl Levin and Harry Reid from serving six terms are not going to do any appreciable harm to institutional memory, and are going to do a lot to counteract the evils of incumbency.
Term limits are basically a solution in search of a problem. I dispute that the evils you attribute to the likes of Harry Reid are primarily or even significantly due to incumbency.
In any case, if the people of Nevada want to elect such a manifestly horrible human being to represent them in the senate for decades why shouldn’t they be free to do so? If the electorate wants new blood in office, it is entirely within its power to bring that about.
Unfortunately, you are not disputing that evils are due to incumbency. You are making an assertion, which is not the same as a disputation.
Are you aware of the reasons that have been offered over the years as to why incumbency is bad for our legislative process? You can’t dispute them unless you know what they are.
How many times does it have to be explained that I can’t vote out the representatives of the people of Nevada who exerted a control over the legislative process far out of proportion to their population, due to their willingness to accept the benefits of incumbency to their own state to the detriment of the nation as a whole?
Will you grok it if I explain it 37 times? 38 times? Exactly what number are we shooting for?
So I’ll apologize in advance for not reading this entire thread, but I have read the las half dozen of your comments. I’ve not seen you make the anti-incumbency case so much as stridently assert it. What do you consider the “evils of incumbency” to be? Those generally proffered are alienation of long term incumbents from the electorate, the undesirability of professional politicians per se, special interest capture of long service legislators, and the fact that long term incumbents tend to amass power and influence as their tenure progresses.
I’m not persuaded that these evils are particularly attributable to incumbency. Long term incumbents tend to be finely attuned to their constituencies. Term limits don’t eliminate professional politicians, they merely resulted in rotation through different offices. (In any case, I don’t believe professional politicians to be necessarily undesirable.) Term limits make special interest capture even more acute as legislators lack the opportunity to develop policy expertise. Finally, term limits don’t disassociate power from tenure; they merely shift power to those with tenure: lobbyists, staffers, and civil servants.
Repetition seems unlikely to make a weak argument stronger. I don’t think you’re unclear (though I confess I’m note entirely sure what the population of Nevada has to do with term limits); merely unpersuasive.