The US Federal Government Should Not Pass a Congressional Term Limit Amendment

I. Subversion of the Democratic ProcessThis leads to an interesting question – in a democracy, should the people be allowed to vote to weaken democracy itself? It also leads to the more relevant question of, “Is it democratic for the people to vote to weaken democracy itself? ” The former question is one for another debate, but the latter question is very much important in the given context. As I said in my round three argument, the U. S. is a representative democracy, not a direct democracy, meaning that, in the U. S. , just because the majority of people support a specific bill doesn’t mean that bill is going to be enacted and it doesn’t mean that it is against the democratic process (at least in the context of the U. S. ) to not enact such a bill. If the majority of people really wanted an incumbent to be voted out of office, it would be within their power to do so. Enacting congressional term limits to force out both popular and unpopular incumbents would be partially counterproductive considering that the voters are more than capable of voting out the unpopular incumbents alone without sacrificing the popular ones as well. In a true democracy, it should only be within the people’s ability to limit the time politicians should remain in office. II. Lame Duck TermsBut as I’ve explained many times in many previous arguments, and in my first point above, it is within the people’s ability to remove someone from office they dislike. If the majority of people really didn’t support Pat Roberts because of his stance on the farm bill, they would have voted him out in the election that followed. Even though he voted against the farm bill that the majority of people supported, the people must have seen him as a better choice than his competitor, most likely due to some other popular bills that he did enact. While my opponent makes a good point on using weak term limits to get around this, there is one problem. Say a congressman is forced out due to weak term limits, and in his last term, he was a lame duck who didn’t speak for the will of the people he represented. If he ran again in 10 or 15 years, people may forget his lame duck term and be swayed by his rhetoric, thus potentially leading to multiple lame duck terms. And no, during lame duck terms, congressmen don’t have to listen to the people they represent because they don’t have to worry about being reelected. There is nothing forcing him to vote one way save his personal interests. III. The Benefits of Experienced CongressmenAgain, my opponent makes a good point on using weak term limits to get around this, and again, there is one problem. Congressmen, in a government without term limits have, on average, more experience, and more current experience, than even congressmen in a government with just weak term limits. This is because, with weak term limits, congressmen still have to spend a lot of time off Capitol Hill doing other non-political related things, and because the political climate can change dramatically in the eight years (or any other number) that a congressmen is gone, and this could set them back in re-entering Congress. Without weak term limits, congressmen can, if still popular of course, spend as much time as necessary on Capitol Hill, and can remain up-to-date on all of the newest issues facing Congress. My opponent’s analogy to the free market is flawed. While weak term limits would obviously get a larger number of people time in Congress, this doesn’t necessarily mean that, in a government with weak term limits, congressmen would be more effective or good than in a government without term limits. In fact, it’d be more likely to run the opposite of what my opponent says. In both systems, ineffective and bad congressmen can be forced out of office, but in the system without term limits, the effective and good congressmen don’t have to be forced out of office, just the ineffective and bad ones. Thus, in a system without term limits, the ineffective and bad congressmen can still be forced out, but you’d have fewer potentially ineffective or bad congressmen coming in. Similarly, my opponent’s sports analogy is flawed. Unlike in sports, congress shouldn’t be composed of a core of “centerpiece” congressmen with a bunch of inexperienced, new congressmen joining them. It would be better if congress could be composed of as many experienced congressmen as possible, because experienced congressmen legislate better. Take for example, healthcare. States without term limits have a higher healthcare reliability score than do states with term limits. "Overall, the average [Best States for your Health] ranking for the fifteen states with term limits is 31st in all three rankings. The average ranking for the 35 states without term limits is 23rd. The reason term limits have such a significant effect on the health of a state’s population may be because term-limited politicians don’t have the time to come up to speed on complex health issues. "[1]First off, on my opponent’s very last point, I question the credibility of his claim, given that its only evidence is from the Cato institute, a libertarian think tank, and that the claim is clearly political in nature. In addition, just because more experienced congressmen support increased government spending and larger government doesn’t necessarily mean that this is because of lobbyists. Lobbyists come in all political affiliations, and there’s no reason that this political shift should be due to them. Also, in a system of weak term limits, congressmen still have to worry about re-election if they want to build a political career. Finally, I’ve shown previously how it is the inexperienced congressmen that are the most susceptible to lobbyists. ConclusionI’ve shown how term limits are undemocratic, lead to more lame duck terms, cause congressmen to be, on average, less experienced, which negatively affects their ability to legislate properly and makes them more susceptible to lobbyists. Weak term limits, while solving these problems slightly compared to strong term limits, still doesn’t solve them as well as having no term limits whatsoever. Sources[1]: . http://pgionfriddo.blogspot.com...[2]: . http://www.nytimes.com...