Tag: John Dingell

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ideological culture term limits

Hating the Senate

House, Democrat, John Dingell

The longest-​serving politician in Congress — ever — thinks he has the perfect reform to put American government back on track.

Former House Democrat John Dingell wants to abolish the Senate.

According to him, the United States should go unicameral.

The ancient bicameral tradition — which goes back to Sumer — is so old hat. He thinks that, these days, “in a nation of more than 325 million and 37 additional states, not only is that structure antiquated, it’s downright dangerous.”

Dangerous? Well, he has always hated the Senate. He sees it as a place where “good bills go to die.”

His new book explains this at length, but I confess: it would go against my principles to put any money into that man’s pocket by buying The Dean: The Best Seat in the House (2018). He almost personifies everything I’m against. His very career is an atrocity. In 1955, John Jr. took over the House seat from his father, a 22-​year incumbent, and then six decades later, in 2015, basically bestowed it on his wife.

That’s 86 years and counting.

How many times did he swear to uphold the Constitution? And yet he doesn’t seem to understand that Article V, governing the amendment process, establishes one specific limitation: “no state, without its consent, shall be deprived of its equal suffrage in the Senate.”

Jettisoning the U.S. Senate would seem to be such a deprivation.

The opposite of this Dingelldorf reform would be more in keeping with the spirit of our system: term limits.

To keep anything like a John Dingell Sixty-​year Stretch from ever occurring again.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

 

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Photo credit: University of Michigan

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Categories
media and media people term limits

Term Limits, Good

During the last few weeks of Egyptian unrest, a phrase got bandied about with an unusual degree of assumed support: Term limits. We heard of their importance from The Christian Science Monitor,  The New York Times, and other news sources, some of which would normally pooh-​pooh any push to establish, say, legislative term limits in America.

The writers and editors in question should find this odd. Why is it good for an executive in America to be term limited (as our Commander-​in-​Chief is), and even essential (as was often said) for commanders elsewhere, while it’s verboten for U.S. legislators?

Term limits’ rationale is clear. Journalists who wrote about the lack of term limits for Mubarak got the idea. They’re familiar with Lord Acton’s dictum: Power tends to corrupt; absolute power corrupts absolutely.

Term limits for executives prevent tyrannies from forming — or, if formed, from continuing till the rigors of mortis set in.

What do term limits for legislators prevent? 

Not full-​blown tyranny, exactly, but corruption. In a representative democracy, corruption can be subtle. 

Term limits are just unsubtle enough to check some of that.

Take John Dingell, the politician to serve longest exclusively in the House. He took over his district from his father, who had served there 22 years — a 78-​year dynasty!

Aristotle argued men should “rule and be ruled in turn.” Term limitation: a democratic principle to ward off both wannabe dictators and legislative dynasties.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.