“Congress is less popular than traffic jams, root canals, and hemorrhoids,” U.S. Term Limits Executive Director Nick Tomboulides explained yesterday at a Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution hearing.
“You’re beating head lice,” he added, “but the lice have asked for a recount.”
Mr. Tomboulides and U.S. Term Limits support Senate Joint Resolution 1, introduced by Sen. Ted Cruz (R‑Texas), which calls for a three-term, six-year House limit and a two-term, 12-year Senate limit.
“Governing is incredibly hard,” argued R Street Institute Senior Fellow and term limits opponent Casey Burgat earlier on C‑Span’s Washington Journal. “There is no school for this.”
The real world, perchance?
“Right now, we have the most experienced, professionalized, careerist Congress in American history,” Tomboulides countered, “and the results are a dumpster fire.”
“When I came to Congress, I supported term limits in theory,” former U.S. Representative and Senator Jim DeMint (R‑South Carolina) testified. “Now I support it after seeing what really happens here.”
“Over 80 percent of Americans want term limits to happen,” Tomboulides offered. “Donald Trump and Barack Obama want it.”
“The only impediment,” as Sen. Cruz pointed out, “is the United States Congress.”
That’s why U.S. Term Limits is working to convince 34 state legislatures to bypass Congress by passing bills for a convention under Article V of the Constitution, which can consider and propose an amendment for congressional term limits.
It’s the people’s path to putting out the dumpster fire.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
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8 replies on “Dousing the Dumpster Fire”
We do NOT need term limits. Term limits were not instigated by the founders for a specific reason. The Constitution, as originally planned, had congressional accountability to the citizens. We now have almost zero accountability in Congress other than to Party. And term limits won’t come close to fixing that.
Instead, we need to go back to having consequences for congressional behavior. Continuance for representatives actually representing the citizens and for senators actually representing the state. And that would also cause a short career for those that don’t.
How to do?
Always debatable but not really addressed. Certainly most of the 17th Ammendment needs to go away. For Reps, a little harder, but totally unrealistic for a Rep to represent 850,000 citizens. Madison warned about the confusion of the multitudes. As originally conceived, a rep could only handle 30,000. I have seen studies that suggested an optimal number is the square root of the population. Don’t know myself, but it is certainly many fewer people than are currently being falsely represented. Ought to be studied. Maybe some trials of different numbers in different states to see what works better. We could not do much worse.
Drik — Regardless of other reforms made, I like term limits as an automatic break from wielding power. But I think your are on to something very important.
The size of US House districts is absolutely ridiculous and it is a YUGE reason our government behaves so ridiculously. The square root of the US population currently is 18,089. I like your number of 30,000 and would settle for 50,000. It would put the citizenry back in charge and it would severely neuter the power of big money as TV and online ads become less important and face-to-face meetings become much more important.
The difference in the government in New Hampshire with 3,000 people to a legislator and California with roughly 500,000 is one heckuva argument for small districts serving better representation and big districts serving career politicians.
Here are a number of my writings (and other info) per your idea, which I first advocated for back in 2000:
The First (and Most Important) First Amendment
https://townhall.com/columnists/pauljacob/2018/06/04/the-first-and-most-important-first-amendment-n2486974
Additional links and important info:
https://thisiscommonsense.org////2018/06/03/townhall-first/
Common Sense: More Politicians?
https://thisiscommonsense.org////2000/05/08/more-politicians/
Townhall: Fixing California (advocating 3 reforms, the last was far smaller districts)
https://thisiscommonsense.org////columns/townhall-2004/fixing-california/
Question to you both: Would having a hugely larger Congress (of 800 to 1000) , to adjust to smaller representation districts. solve anything at all. I honestly can’t see anything beneficial in this…
A bigger Congress, on with more and real representation of the citizens would be a big step back toward restoring the republic. If it can be restored. Because the other alternative is continuing increasing corruption and collapse, along with bloody revolution. Big question is to how to keep responsibility and accountability to citizens on a human, workable scale. A pencil can be the size of a telephone pole, but it no longer works for humans. If we cannot do it, then we cannot have a democratic republic. And if we cannot have that, then our longevity will be as moot as the shortness of our liberty.
No biggie, but for me, I find your variation of font size in a Common Sense message, presumably for better emphasis, is distracting. It’s the kind of thing done by certain marketers, hoping to help sell more product. Your words and your thoughts are your products and they speak for themselves.
re: a ConCon.
Be careful what you wish for, as the old saying goes.
That could open up a big can of worms.
Do you really think it would end up being limited what it was originally intended to deal with?
Limited or not, would still have to be approved by 35 states. What we have is going to crash. What we have is going to continue status quo until too late. What we have is unlikely to protect freedom and liberty in what comes after.
With the country, now hovering on the edge of a civil war, a Con-con could very easily used to the detriment of freedom. The bad guys are just waiting for the weapons to take us down and they are being assisted by some in the U.S. Congress. Let’s get things a little more under the umbrella of sanity, before we charge into the storm. One thing at a time…