Remember congressional term limits? The idea, I mean. I know we don’t have them yet, though U.S. Term Limits is starting to make real progress through the states.
There was a big push or pseudo-push for congressional term limits in Congress in the mid-1990s. Later, first-term President Trump sort of promoted congressional term limits for a
Don’t we all wish we had congressional term limits or age limits, or both, whenever a congressman of extremely advanced tenure or age, or both, drags himself through yet another
Age limits would have been academic for Chuck Grassley, however, had he been subject to limits of, say, two six-year terms when he first became a senator in 1981. This is not an issue of people in their 70s, 80s, and 90s getting elected to Congress for the first time.
Grassley, for example, has been in Congress for the last 52 years: 46 years in the Senate and six years before that as a U.S. Representative. And let’s note 16 years in the Iowa State Legislature before that. Grassley has been in elected office non-stop for 68 years.
Five years ago, we were told that Grassley, filing to run for yet another term, would be 95 by the end of that term if he ran and won and survived. Now, at 93, he has just filed paperwork to run for yet another term. He would be 101 by the end of it if he runs and wins . . . and survives.
Which, accordingly, would be 74 consecutive years in
Time to give someone else a chance? Or will Grassley run again in 2032?
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2 replies on “Power to the Last Grasp”
Again: Term limits have a salutary effect on the incentives of politicians and of voters, but age limits simply seek to use age as a crude proxy for competence.
We should have no objection to the election of an aged man or woman, if he or she is mentally acute and physically vigorous.
But career politicians represent what in economics is called an “agency problem” — their incentives become misaligned with the interests of the people whom these politicians are supposed to represent. And, in the absence of term limits, voters in each district contest with those in every other district for the benefits of more senior representatives, and trade-away other things in that contest.
Seniority, at least in Congress, gives office holders greater power, based on the rules currently in effect. As the federal government continues to grow, more and more power is gained by those who remain in office. They claim the experience is needed because the federal government keeps growing. Their constituents love it because their elected officials bring home the bacon. Strom Thurmond couldn’t beat Grassley but he comes close: Eighteen years in state legislature and the governorship, followed by 48 years in the US senate. (There was a three year break between state and federal government.) Contrary to tradition, many early leaders in the republic stayed a long time. Two years after leaving the presidency, John Quincy Adams ran for a House seat and served in the House for seventeen consecutive years before dying in office.