Resolved: The US federal goverment should pass a term limit ammendment

Con's Case: A) Term Limits Prevents Elected Official From Gaining Experience Running a government is every bit as tricky as running a business- it takes knowledge of budgeting, management, and relevant “best practice.” In the business world, experience is valued because with experience comes knowledge of how to be efficient in your job and how to perform your job well. In fact, running a government can be significantly more complicated than running a business. A business concerns itself only with its niche in the private sector, e.g. with architecture for a an architectural firm or with food for McDonalds. As Aristotle says in “Nichomachean Ethics,” a politician must concern himself with the entire range of fields that he governs: “politics appears to be of this nature; for it is this that ordains which of the sciences should be studied in a state, and which each class of citizens should learn and up to what point they should learn them; and we see even the most highly esteemed of capacities to fall under this, e.g. strategy, economics, rhetoric; now, since politics uses the rest of the sciences, and since, again, it legislates as to what we are to do and what we are to abstain from, the end of this science must include those of the others, so that this end must be the good for man. For even if the end is the same for a single man and for a state, that of the state seems at all events something greater and more complete…” The statesman must learn and master a wide variety of issues, and to do so takes time. Term limits prevents Congressmen from gaining the needed experience to effectively govern. One only needs to look toward the state government of California, which has enacted term limits and has been the premier example of fiscal ineptitude and poor governance: “The product of this verges on the comical. As a California budget-watcher pointed out to me, when you get Arnold Schwarzenegger in a room with the leadership of the Senate and Assembly, Schwarzenegger has the most budget and legislative experience in the room. A guy who was starring in Terminator films as recently as 2003 is now the most seasoned elected official during one of the worst crises California has ever had. Term limits are one of those ideas that sound good in theory but are madness in practice. You wouldn't want to go to a hospital filled with medical residents or stock a sports team with an ever-changing cast of rookies. Legislating is hard. We need to give people time to learn how to do it.[1]” Or look at the term-limited state of Missouri: “A new report from the [University of Missouri] Truman School of Public Affairs argues that the shortening of lawmakers' careers has contributed to a lack of political expertise in the general assembly -- resulting in a less effective government.”[2] B) Term Limits Shift Power to the Bureaucracy and Lobbyists Traditionally, legislators become policy experts in certain areas and are then able to contribute to the legislative process as a whole. With term limits, legislators cannot gain policy expertise and so rely on lobbyists for policy advice. Missouri proves: “[Reasearch associate professor] Valentine argues that the disappearance of long-term or career politicians in the general assembly has led to a deficit of policy experts. A former state senate staffer, Valentine said that the traditional route for lawmakers to distinguish themselves was to become a respected expert on a certain policy area and then become a resource for other lawmakers. Without this practice, Valentine said term limits have given more power to lobbyists who - as non-government employees - can remain in the halls of the capitol longer than any elected official in Jefferson City ever could. But at the same time, these lobbyists are not held accountable to constituents.”[2] This exacerbates the influence of corporations and big money on Congress. Lobbyists do not get elected and so are only accountable to their financiers. C) Term Limits are a Blunt Object Where a Scalpel is Needed Term limits would force out many good career politicians- my opponent even concedes this. That there are bad career politicians doesn’t mean we should get rid of all statesmen with a long history of service, this is throwing the baby out with the bathwater. Instead it would be better to initiate more precise reform like campaign finance reform, revising the seniority system, rotating committee chairs more frequently, etc. There are a wide array of options that would help disperse the power of long-serving Congressmen that would not force respectable career politicians to retire. Opponent’s Case: C1: This is entirely refuted by my opening argument. “Career Politicians” are needed to ensure that our politicians are experienced enough to do a good job. My opponent even concedes that there are many good career politicians. These are the type of people we need governing our country, and instituting term limits would throw them out of office. It is easy to invoke cute catchphrases like “Career politicians got us into this mess,” but soundbites like this don’t capture the complexity of the legislative process. Furthermore, the argument is a fallacy; just because many of today’s problems are the fault of some career politicians doesn’t mean other politicians can’t solve those problems. It is even more absurd to presume that simply being a non-career politician makes you magically more capable of solving existing problems. A sea captain crashed the Titanic, but that doesn’t mean we should get non-captains to pilot our luxury mega-cruisers. Instead, we vote out the Titanic-crashing captains and keep the captains that don’t crash into icebergs. Furthermore, the myth of the invincible incumbent is just that: a myth. There were huge upsets during the 2008 elections by Tea Party backed Republican challengers and notably Arlen Specter was defeated in his 2010 Senatorial campaign after serving for nearly 30 years. New blood comes into Congress each election cycle. C2: All the long-term politicians with “cozy” relationships to special interests started out as freshman politicians; there is no reason to think the new blood in Congress wont buddy-up to lobbyists. Note that Pro offers no evidence that new politicians are less likely to listen to lobbyists, he just links to some random website. Compare this to my University study showing that term limits cause politicians to rely MORE on the advice of lobbyists. Additionally, term limits mean that politicians have a “lame duck” term- a term where they know they aren’t coming back because they have the term limit. These politicians have no incentive to stay accountable to their electorate, what is to stop them from “cashing in” before they are permanently booted from office and selling their vote to the highest bidder behind closed doors? C3: Pro lists the inequities cause by the seniority and committee chair systems as reasons to limit the terms. This demands the obvious question: why not just reform these conventions instead? I stated in my opening argument that these are the problems with the structure of Congress; these are the issues that should be the target of reform, not term limits. C4: This is just a modified “Tu quoque”- The fact that we have term limits on the presidency is totally independent of whether we should institute Congressional term limits; the two governing bodies are structurally very different (one person vs. a body of hundreds of legislators) and serve different functions. The relevant question here is “What is the best way to structure Congress?” not “How can we make Congress look more like the Presidency?” [1] http://voices.washingtonpost.com... [2] http://ozarksfirst.com...