Category: term limits

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ballot access incumbents initiative, referendum, and recall term limits

Intentionally Confounding Incumbents

Memphis, ballot, instant runoff, term limits

The three issues on the ballot in Memphis this November are “not complicated,” writes Commercial Appeal columnist David Waters, “unless you read the actual ballot questions.”

Which is all most voters will see.

All three directly affect the self-​interest of members of the Memphis City Council, which placed them on the ballot and determined the language voters will attempt to decipher. 

Waters called that ballot wording “incomprehensible” and “intentionally confounding.” His newspaper colleague, Ryan Poe, accused the council of “trying to stack the deck.”

The first measure would weaken the council’s term limits, passed in 2011 with a 78 percent vote and just about to kick in. The ballot language, Mr. Poe explains, “reads like voters are being asked to place limits on council members … rather than extend them.” By an extra term.

The second issue would repeal Instant Runoff Voting (IRV), which was brought forth by citizen petition and enacted via a 71 percent yes vote. The confusing ballot wording brings up a 1991 federal court decision without providing voters any context or explanation.

Though IRV has not yet been used, council incumbents fear it.* This becomes especially clear when you discover that the third ballot question is actually a sneakier, second attempt to repeal IRV.

“Instant runoffs, and run-​off elections in general, tend to make it easier for challengers to unseat incumbents in multi-​candidate district races,” argues Waters. He adds, “Incumbents generally become stronger the longer they are in office.”

To incumbent politicians, reform is a dirty word. 

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

 

* Back in February, the council was caught paying a lobbyist to convince state legislators to restrict their city’s ability to implement Instant Runoff Voting. 

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general freedom national politics & policies term limits

Wise American Tradition

George Washington, resignation, king, father, term limits

On Sunday, former Pres. Barack Obama acknowledged — in the breach — the “wise American tradition of ex-​presidents gracefully exiting the political stage and making room for new voices and new ideas.” 

The former president’s talk at the University of Illinois made big news in large part because it was a direct attack on the current president.

“We have our first president, George Washington, to thank for setting that example,” Mr. Obama explained to the students. “After he led the colonies to victory, as General Washington, there were no constraints on him, really. He was practically a god to those who had followed him into battle. There was no Constitution.  There were no democratic norms that guided what he should or could do. And he could have made himself all-​powerful; he could have made himself potentially president for life. Instead, he resigned as commander-​in-​chief and moved back to his country estate.”

Noting that “six years later” Washington was elected president, Obama added, “But after two terms, he resigned again and rode off into the sunset.”

The two-​term limit, constitutionally imposed on modern presidents, was established as a tradition when self-​imposed by the man known as the father of our country.

“The point Washington made, the point that is essential to American democracy, is that in a government of, and by and for the people, there should be no permanent ruling class,” the former president concluded, “… only citizens, who through their elected and temporary representatives determine our course and determine our character.”

On that, Americans across the political spectrum can agree. 

It’s called term limits.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

 

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Illustration: detail from “The Resignation of General Washington, December 23, 1783,” oil on canvas, by the American artist John Trumbull.

 

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Accountability ideological culture moral hazard national politics & policies term limits

The Self-​Neutered Congress

Last week, the Senate Judiciary Committee again demonstrated why Congress’s approval ratings bob about in our toilet bowls. Amid the spectacle of Judge Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation hearings, one senator spoke not about judicial philosophy, but political reality.

“What’s the hysteria coming from?” asked Sen. Ben Sasse (R‑Neb.), noting the circus-​like atmosphere. His answer? The Supreme Court “is increasingly a substitute political battleground,” because “the Congress has decided to self-neuter.”

Blunt assessment.

“In our system, the legislative branch is supposed to be the center of our politics,” Sasse argued, adding dejectedly, “It’s not.”

Why not? 

“What we mostly do around this body is not pass laws,” he offered. “What we mostly do is decide to give permission to the secretary or administrator of bureaucracy X, Y, or Z to make law-​like regulations.” 

“More and more legislative authority is delegated to the executive branch every year. Both parties do it,” explained the senator. “The legislature is impotent, the legislature is weak, and most people here want their jobs more than they really want to do legislative work …”

Sasse continued, “The real reason, at the end of the day, that this institution punts most of its power to executive branch agencies is because it’s a convenient way for legislators to be able to avoid taking responsibility for controversial and often unpopular decisions.”

Better to blame the bureaucracy.

“If your biggest long-​term thought around here is about your own incumbency,” he said dismissively, “then actually giving your power away is a pretty good strategy.”

But “when Congress neuters itself,” warns the Cornhusker State solon, “it means the people are cut out of the process.”

A powerful case for term limits.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

 

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Accountability government transparency incumbents initiative, referendum, and recall local leaders nannyism political challengers Regulating Protest term limits too much government

Strange It Is

Arlington, Texas, term limits, democracy, initiative,City Council,

Strange for the Arlington, Texas, City Council to hold a meeting on a Sunday evening, much less one to “consider suspending the city charter.”

That is how the Fort Worth Star-​Telegram reported “the latest twist in the term limit controversy that has engulfed the city with a lawsuit and competing ballot proposals.”

Led by Zack Maxwell, citizens in this Fort Worth adjacent community of 400,000 gathered 11,000 voter signatures to place a term limits charter amendment on the November ballot. It would limit councilmembers to three two-​year terms. It also figures in past service, so five of the eight current councilmembers would be blocked from seeking re-​election in the coming two years.

With swift legislative prowess, the council responded, passing its own competing “term limits” measure, which incidentally allows them to stay 50 percent longer in office.

But there’s one problem: the council did not follow the law, which requires multiple readings, with one at a regular meeting. 

Actually, there’s a second problem: Mr. Maxwell challenged the council’s unlawful action in court. 

The court blocked the council’s measure. 

That left the council holding an unusual weekend meeting to suspend the rules and re-​pass their fumbled alternative to the term limits voters really want. But news travels fast and city hall was “packed.” 

“You’re suspending the rules because your jobs are in jeopardy,” charged one man.

A woman told the council, “You guys should be absolutely embarrassed about this.”

“After hearing from dozens of angry residents,” the paper explained, “[t]he council voted unanimously to not suspend the rules, finally killing its own term limit proposal.”

Politicians doing the right thing … having exhausted every other possibility.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob. 

 

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Photo from the Fort Worth Star-​Telegram

 

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Accountability incumbents initiative, referendum, and recall insider corruption local leaders political challengers term limits

Sneaky Lobbyists Prefer Sneakiness

time expired, time limit, term limits, Arkansas, politicians, referendum, vote, lobbyists

The Arkansas Chamber of Commerce’s CEO and chief lobbyist, Randy Zook and Kenneth Wall, have formed Arkansans for Common-​Sense Term Limits. 

The Chamber has a burning hatred for term limits — Common-​Sense or otherwise — just like every other lobbyist and special interest. But Zook and Hall are fibbing in their name because they realize that voters love term limits. 

The ballot committee’s stated purpose? To “advocate for the disqualification or defeat” of the Arkansas Term Limits Amendment, which citizens just petitioned onto the ballot, collecting 129,000 signatures.

Defeating such a popular ballot measure isn’t likely. Instead, these politically-​experienced lobbyists are preparing to sue, hoping to disqualify valid voters’ signatures on some ginned-​up technicality, feigning confusion over the clear ballot language — anything that might keep democracy from coming this November.*

At issue? The difference between real term limits and ridiculous ones.

That is, between term limits set by citizens and those set by legislators themselves. 

Currently, legislators can serve for 16 years in a single seat under the state’s “limits.” And because two-​year Senate terms aren’t counted at all, senators can stay as long as 22 years. 

Legislators snuck this past voters in 2014 with a ballot title claiming only to “establish” term limits … amidst other lies. Politicians thereby turned Arkansas’s toughest-​in-​the-​nation term-​limit law into the nation’s very weakest — a significant 50 percent longer than limits in any other state.**

Unfazed by all the corruption in the Arkansas Legislature, Chamber lobbyists are focused on putting politicians in their pocket for as long as possible. 

But those pesky Arkansas voters are once again in the way.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

 

* After recently threatening to challenge the signatures of another initiative petition, Zook had to admit that he was not aware of a single problem or deficiency in the petition. But he quickly added, “It’s a very complicated process.”

** Arkansas’s term limits were the same as Michigan’s until 2014, three terms, six years in the House and two-​terms, eight-​years in the Senate.

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Original photo by Jeff Kubina

 

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Accountability general freedom government transparency incumbents insider corruption local leaders moral hazard national politics & policies term limits

“Dorky” Doesn’t Define It

term limits, Congress, myth, power, corruption

“Term limits,” said Daniel McCarthy, editor of The Modern Age, in a recent podcast conversation with historian Tom Woods, “was one of the dorkiest ideas of the 1994 so-​called Newt Gingrich revolution.”

He characterized it as not having really gone anywhere.

Huh?

Granted, Congress is still not term-​limited. But Americans in 15 states — including California, Colorado, Florida, Michigan, and Ohio, and representing 37 percent of the nation’s population — do enjoy term-​limited state legislatures.*

And it sure wasn’t Newt Gingrich’s idea. Gingrich opposed it.

McCarthy repeats the old chestnut that what term limitation “winds up doing is actually weakening Congress and congresspeople in particular — relative to their own staff, who stay in Congress and become sort of experts and learn how to manipulate their congressman, and also relative to the executive branch who have people rotate in from time to time.”

Nifty theory — one very popular with politicians, who know that voters fear unelected influences on legislation.

The reality, however, is that Congress, designed by the Constitution’s framers to be both most powerful and closest to the people‚ is, today, the weakest branch.

And legislators are not term limited.

Ditch the “manipulation theory”; adopt a “collaboration theory”: legislators with Methuselah-​long careers learn, sans “rotation in office,” to feather their own nests and those of the interest groups that fund their re-​elections (and insider trading schemes).

Term limits remain popular with normal Americans because voters intuitively grasp the reality of such everyday corruption, which is directly tied to Congress having sloughed off so much constitutional responsibility. 

We need term limits to restore a Congress sold out by professional politicians.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

 

* Nine of the ten largest cities in America likewise have termed-​limited their elected officeholders. For more information, see the links to the column from which this episode of Common Sense is condensed.

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