JOEBIALEK

"Some career politicians may no doubt be motivated by altruism at the outset, but over time officeholding becomes a job like any other. In its own way, it's as much an entrepreneurial pursuit as nurturing a business. This is why political outcomes should be kept in perspective." ---Jerry Heaster

The key word here is entrepreneurial; the actions of a person who organizes, operates, and assumes the risk for a business venture. Indeed, that is the primary focus of most (if not all) politicians. There primary objective is self-promotion for the express purpose of rewarding themselves and their financial supporters. With incumbent reelection at nearly 95%, there is a very limited popular "checks and balance" on what they do and little incentive for them to "do the right thing". Barring a major scandal (a la Gary Condit), legislators could occupy the office until they decide to retire. The founding fathers certainly did not intend to allow absolute power to corrupt absolutely {as stated by Thomas Jefferson} but they also knew that any social experiment always sews the seeds of it's own destruction. Our political system has been corrupted by greed and there is once again the need to amend the United States Constitution (as well as all State constitutions). Accordingly, legislators (from city council to congress) should be limited to two consecutive terms in office. This would actually promote greater democracy as it will insure more occupants of the elected office and a greater republic as they will not be loyal to any particular constiuency (over a long period of time). We may actually see the re-emergence of two distinct political parties. The perspective now is that it does'nt really matter which party is in power. Hence the resulting voter apathy. The Democrats and Republicans are like two competing law firms. Some would argue that a cadre of professional politicians is the best choice for a republican government but in a capitalist society only the statesman {philosopher kings} could be entrusted with that much responsibility. Sadly, the statesman are kept out of office by the self-perpetuating politicians. Term limits would be a start towards re-claiming the values this country was founded on.

HaysooChreesto!

I'm of two minds on this issue. On one hand, it does seem pretty easy for any politician to become corrupt. The inner-workings of any political system have more to do with towing the party line, exchanging favors, and compromising than it does with actually serving the will of the electorate. With this outlook, I think term limits could indeed be useful.

OTOH, what if the electorate really likes the guy they voted for? Two people come to mind immediately. The first is Strom Thurmond; he's been re-elected to office since Ben Franklin was drinking beer and chasing loose women. It's pretty apparent that old (real old) Strom is well loved by his constituency.

The other guy is Ted Kennedy. Despite an incredibly controversial personal life and a nation wide perception that he's Chivas swilling lush, he too has been re-elected time and time again.

I'm sure there's more honorable examples than Methuselah's younger brother and the Hero of Chappaquidick, but for these purposes they work.

I think I marginally stand against term limits because it more or less takes the choices away from voters. How's that for crystal clarity?

Feather

But people are dumb, Lamma, so their desire to see the same corrupt jackass return to office over and over isn't necessarily a good thing.

Term limits are good because the concept allows for a larger number of corrupt jackasses to exercise their corruption to the max. It spreads the wealth, so to speak.

Zimyatin

Term limits are fools' gold. Yeah, kick the bums out. Sucking on the public tit - damn perverts! And they have all those franking privileges and the benefit of incumbency. Plus that salary and the benefits for life. But...

When you limit the term of politicians - particularly in the legislative body - you lose valuable experience. Do you really want the taxing/spending/declaring war branch of government to be all tenderfoots? We need people who know how the system works.

"But I would love a congress that didn't know what it was doing!" Yeah, and so do lobbyists. Here in Michigan we have term limits, six years for the house. The result? Now the only people who know how to get things done are the people with experience. Yes, the friends of democracy. Lobbyists. They don't have to worry about term limits.

Don't call me hairy Mary twat's a scary but I would rather have an incumbent abuse the power of his office than a lobbyist corrupt a branch of government. At least the fucker was elected.

Grad Student Humanist

The office of the presidency is subject to term limits. So are many public offices on the state and local level across the country.

There is no reason why the members of the federal legislature have to be exempt from term limits.

The less career politicians in Washington the better. There's no reason a Senator couldn't be limited to two (maybe three) six-year terms and a Congressman limited to six two-year terms. That's more than enough time to get something accomplished.

Restricting the power/influence of lobbyists is a separate issue and should be dealt with accordingly.