Term Limits...why not, Bob? - Granite Grok

Term Limits…why not, Bob?

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There cannot be a better "poster-child" for term-limits, than Illinois Senator Dick Durbin, who has apparently become Paul Hodes’ new financial mentor.

Now, a particular NH CD-2 Congressional candidate is dead-set against term limits, insisting that we "already have them", "they are already in the Constitution", and that “the people must become engaged", in order to properly enforce them.

While it is true that the Constitution does outline terms of office for members of Congress, the founders, in their optimism for those who would serve the public, never imagined the patronage, graft, corruption, theft, and influence that we see today in Congress.

Conceding that “we already have term limits”, and relying on the people becoming fully engaged, exercising their civic duty to take care of this issue, could be a good approach, if we had ANY evidence that it would occur, and would remain consistent.  This is doubtful, when the average re-election rate since 1964 is 93% in the House and 81% in the Senate.  Apparently, "the people" have come to expect certain things from their incumbent politicians.

Making it worse, the 17th amendment allows “the people” to choose their Senators, instead of their State Legislatures, as originally designed by the Founders.  This simply forces us to rely even more on “the people” to do the right thing, all the time.  It also removes a critical check and balance on Senatorial behavior.

Ted Kennedy and Strom Thurmond each held their Senate seats for 47 years.  Robert Byrd held his for a record, 51 years.  John Murtha held his Congressional seat for 36 years.

Clearly, after serving a number of initial terms, each of these men amassed sufficient fortune, power, and influence to get re-elected, repeatedly, with little or no challenge.  If those who were represented by these men didn’t pay attention, for the many decades they served, taking action to oust them, why should we expect this to happen in the future? 

In fact, as their power and influence grew, these men were in increasingly better positions to redirect Federal funds (pork) to their constituents, treating them as a drug dealer treats their addicted heroin clients.

When your politician is “bringing home the bacon”, why kick them out, replacing them with a junior member with nascent influence?  This is why “the people” don’t often un-elect "homesteading" politicians like Kennedy, Thurmond, and Byrd.

We need to add a sensible term-limit amendment to the US Constitution.  Our country has attempted and passed amendments a number of times.  In 1995, the US House nearly passed a Term Limits bill, falling short of a 2/3 majority by only 63 votes.  A number of States have also passed their own term limit laws, which have been (rightly) challenged as unconstitutional.  Only an amendment is valid.

To make it even easier, we only need term limits imposed on the US House.  The US Senate, without the 17th amendment, would have natural term limits, imposed by the State Legislatures.  We should equal House term limit energy to repealing the 17th Amendment.

Times like these, when people are angry and paying attention, are the best time to attempt this.  It must be done now, before this anger and attention dissipates, and as we welcome a new crop of passionate, conservative faces in Congress.

"We don’t need them” and “it cannot be done" are not acceptable positions, Bob Giuda.  People want optimistic fighters to represent them.

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