For a long time, I’ve struggled with the question of term
limits and reelection questions. For
years I’ve heard conservatives (and even some liberals) saying some variation
of “we need term limits – Senators and congressmen should serve no more than 2
(or 3 or 4) terms! This will solve the
problem!” The belief seems to be that if
we can limit these guys to two or three terms that we will fix the problems
since, of course, that means someone else will have to take the seat of power
that they have and that crony-ism will disappear. And, to a certain extent, this is true. However, I have come to believe that this is actually
playing into the problem and doesn’t go anywhere near far enough.
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Politicians can get in office, do favors for big
donors, shower their district with money, and ultimately use name-recognition
to stay in power for decades, if they’re good at playing the game
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Long-time office-holders have huge power based
on committee membership, tenure in the office, personal favors and the
like. If you are a young, idealistic
member and cross a powerful Senator or Congressman, your ability to do anything
other than warm your seat is nearly zero
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Re-election campaigns take huge amounts of time
and money. Politicians who are in
office, immediately start figuring out how to stay in office. I mean, it’s a sweet gig, if you can get
it! Decent salary, money from lobbyists,
deals that can make you very wealthy and powerful, health-care, and a
retirement program that is next to none.
Are our politicians really being productive if their number one
objective is keeping all that stuff and their position?
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When an office-holder leaves office, frequently
there are a cadre of unelected ‘handlers’ that stay behind for the next person
coming into the office to make their transition into the job easier and to make
sure they know their place
Let’s see if I can find a way to express the problem in one
sentence. Let’s try this: Running
for re-election is at the core of most of the problems in politics. Yep.
It may be a little bit of an exaggeration, but not by much. Name just about anything that you dislike
about someone in elected office, and it almost certainly is at least to some
extent, impacted by the need for re-election.
My solution is very simple.
I’m advocating the complete elimination of more than one consecutive term
for ANY federal elected politician. Imagine it…
A president comes into office, works from the day he is inaugurated
until the day he leaves, and doesn’t spend a single minute working on re-election
since he can’t be re-elected. Members of
Congress – same thing. They have nothing to do but their jobs!
Simplicity is the key to success, so here are the key
elements I’d like to see in this reform:
1.
One and only one term in office for all federal
elected offices including the Presidency
2.
A maximum of two Non-consecutive terms are allowed
3.
If you are elected to an office, you can’t be
elected to any OTHER office until a minimum of two years after your last term
ended
4.
Elimination of any payment or benefit (health
insurance, retirement, etc) to elected officials after their term of office
ends (with the possible exception of the Presidency – we’d have to talk about
this one)
5.
Sitting elected officials would not be allowed
to campaign for or publicly support ANYONE running for any office
6.
Anyone who has held public office cannot
participate in any campaign or be a part of any government office (including as
a staffer for another elected official) for the equivalent of one term of
office after they leave office.
7.
Terms of office should overlap by 30 days. This gives the outgoing official time to
transition everything to the incoming official.
Generally, power would be shared during that time, but only the incoming
official has the power to vote, sign legislation, submit bills, etc. The outgoing official is in an advisement
capacity only.
8.
Staffs are equally not allowed to serve beyond
the term of their boss and will assist in the transition, but cannot be part of
the next term.
In addition, I’d like to see these changes implemented
around this concept:
1.
Reverting election of the Senate to the original
intent in the constitution: Senators
would be selected by the legislatures of the many states and would serve up to
a six year term. Keep in mind that they
would serve at the pleasure of their legislature and could be recalled and
replaced at any time, if the state so desired.
2.
The House would serve a two year term and be
elected as they are now
3.
The President would serve a four year term and
be elected as happens now, via the electoral college
These changes would, of course, involve amending the
constitution. However, these changes
would, in my opinion, change American politics forever for the better. Throughout history, the professional
politician has mangled and destroyed more nations, people, wealth, and
prosperity than anything else. Remember: No war begins without a politician. No trade or embargo happens without a
politician. No foreign policy happens
without a politician. These things are crucial to a nation, and politics,
especially fearing re-election repercussions, cause people to make decisions
that are not always in the best interest of the nation as a whole.
I can see lots of up sides to doing this. For example…
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Offers of support (i.e. – money) for their next
campaign would be non-existent once they are in office since they can’t run
again
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Actual representation of the states that sent
them starts to actually happen
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I bet we’d see third-party candidates start to
have more influence
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No real need for redistricting – that’s just a
tool for re-elections
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Since a sitting politician can’t support anyone running
for office, there’s no need for fund-raising trips, stump speeches, rallies and
other things to get in the way of their work
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The politician can be 100% focused on their work
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Since we are eliminating all of that time spent
stumping and pumping for re-election, perhaps the Congress can once again be a
part-time entity – hey, a guy can dream, can’t he?
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Since everyone would be new every few years, the
‘good-old-boys-club’ becomes almost impossible to maintain.
There are probably LOTS of other positives. I'm sure there are some negatives as well, like maybe the loss of all of that experience would be bad. Or that we'd wind up with a bunch of amateurs that don't know how to legislate running things. Hmmm - I don't know why, but neither of those scare me as much as a bunch of deep insider, crony jack-asses playing with my future and the future of my children.
I like to dream, and although the chances of this ever
happening seem absolutely invisible, it is fun to imagine a presidential
campaign where all of the candidates were private citizens. Imagine not having to pay for the re-election
campaign of the president, who has to fly around on Air Force One or drive
around on Greyhound Bus One while he or she should be dealing with a faltering
economy or unemployment or wars in multiple countries.
All of this dreaming got me to thinking about other things I’d
like…
In my ideal world, I’d kind of like to see these changes as
well:
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First and foremost: Case
law and foreign law should NEVER be used to evaluate the constitutionality of
anything. The constitution IS our country.
It is the document that establishes the form of our Federal government,
the restrictions on it, the makeup of our republic and the limits on its power
as relates to the states and the people.
Any law or court case that hinges on a constitutional matter MUST be
evaluated against the constitution itself and not some other person’s opinion
about it. The problem with using case
law is that it assumes that the last guy or last court got it right. That may be fine with laws that are
challenged outside of constitutional grounds, but when it comes to the
foundational documents that say who we are as a country, each and every
challenge MUST be evaluated on its own merits against the standard. Using case law as the comparison for
constitutionality is like the old VHS video-tape problem of a copy of a copy of
a copy. The original still looks good,
but the copy stinks. It is crucial that the
evaluation of anything as being constitutional or not must be in comparison to
the standard itself, and not to a copy in the form of someone’s opinion.
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Lawyers
would NOT be allowed to run for any political office in the legislative branch
of the government. Let’s face
it: it’s a conflict for those writing
the laws to also be in the position of using those laws in the private
sector. I refer you to wolves guarding
the henhouse. It seems to me that the
possibility of writing law to benefit other lawyers is just too great. Not to mention, if we get rid of
lawyer/lawmakers, maybe we, the people who have to live under those laws, will
understand the laws that are written.
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For a
period of 10 years from the time this law was passed, extendible in 5 year
increments, for every law that is written, 5 laws must be eliminated. This is SO needed. There are so many laws on the books – so much
duplication and contradiction. To make
things worse, there is a huge mass of case law surrounding this mountain of
laws, and on top of all that, there is another mountain of rules made by each
of the Federal departments that the law pertains to (Ever seen the Obama-care
legislation? Any idea how many times
“…as deemed appropriate by the secretary” or words to that effect
appear?). This makes it impossible for
the citizen to pretty much do anything in life without breaking some law,
somewhere. Turning us all into unwitting
lawbreakers is NOT a good thing and not what we would expect from a free society.
What do you think?
Any of that make sense? Hey, while
we’re dreaming, I’d like to see these as well…
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Go to a single standard of proof for civil and
criminal cases. This would prevent the
silliness caused by someone being found innocent of a criminal complaint, then
being sued by the victim for the crime they were found innocent of, and being
found guilty. It should not be possible
to be innocent of something and then be found guilty under a different
standard. Whether you agree or disagree
with the ruling on O.J. Simpson, once he was found innocent, he should NOT have
been able to be sued into poverty for the crime he was found innocent of
committing. That is not justice.
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Loser pays.
Period. If you are accused of a
crime by the state or sued by someone else, and you win, the loser, no matter
who it is, pays. This MUST apply to even
criminal cases. I would go so far as to
say that if you are found guilty and later determined to be innocent, that the
state or feds must repay all costs to the innocent party and recompense them
for all lost wages, loss of status and for any suffering they had because of
that bad ruling. There MUST be consequences
for bad decisions. The state must be
held accountable if the rest of us are going to be. A person can be utterly ruined by a lawsuit
that they win. Example? When I was going through concealed carry
class in Missouri, at that time there was no castle doctrine. The instructor made it clear that if you
defended yourself against someone trying to kill you, even if you weren’t
charged with a crime, the average person would have to pay between $80,000 and
$200,000 in legal fees to fight the lawsuits that would certainly be brought by
the family of the criminal. Can you
afford that? Sure, it beats being dead,
but not by much.
So, that’s my vision for America. What do you think?
