The U.S. ought to impose term limits on Congress

My order of business will be to review the negation's points then provide my rebuttal. To the case as a whole: I would have to say, in a theoretically perfect world my opponent's points make sense, but since this world is imperfect I would argue that they actually work against his goals. 1)The people deserve the right to elect whomever they want. This is a statement that I believe. The problem is that our current system forces all but the rare few cases to be an election between two individuals. This would be fine since the primary process chooses those two individuals, except that when the incumbent runs, the primary tends chooses them. Thus an entire field of candidates is not available to the public. It is rare for someone to successfully beat an incumbent in a primary, for this reason candidates rarely attempt to run against incumbents of their own party. A notable example is of John Thune of South Dakota during this election. John Thune ran unopposed and secured 100% of the vote, while in 2004 he only won with 50.6%. To call this representative, the offering of one choice to pick from, is ridiculous as it does not show the state's true opinion. 2) This assumes that there is only one right candidate for a state or district. I would argue that during the first few elections, the results are pretty representative of the populace, but due to the advantages of incumbency they continue to represent the people who originally elected them more than they represent their current constituents. Long standing candidates don't know their area any more than freshman does, all it means is they understand the political process enough to win reelection, such as knowing how to get funding for their campaigns. The current system eliminates potential politicians before giving them a chance. My model would remove one person as a choice AFTER a relatively long period of time and open the election to choose from a much broader range of candidates. --Rebuttal-- a) I would argue against this, the congressmen are more influenced by lobbyists (usually not from their district) and their constituents that they agree with, rather than their constituents as a whole, especially when they are in a safe district. b) A vote for what their constituents want is definitely representing. But there is much more to being reelected than voting the way your constituents want, a politician can vote differently from their constituents and still win reelection. Ted Kennedy had represented Massachusetts since 1962 through 2009. Ted Kennedy's number one issue he fought for was Health Care reform, but he died shortly before the bill was debated and voted on. It is Notable that the special election to replace him was focused on one issue, Health Care reform, and the people of Massachusetts overwhelmingly voted against everything that almost 50 years of Kennedy's tenure was about. c) To say Incumbents have "no real advantage" is ignorant at best, nearly 100 years of recent electoral history will say otherwise. Now, here you bring up safe districts, this is all a part of the problem, earlier I pointed out the rarity of someone running against an incumbent in a primary. Because of this, the same candidate tends to appear on the general ballot and then the people vote for their party (not the candidate) and that candidate gets reelected. Thus the candidate represents the party of that district rather than the people. d) Earlier you said when congressmen "pick the most popular decisions" they are "Representing their people" I took this to mean you define a Congressman who votes the way his/her district would vote as representing their district. But here you say the politicians make their own choices. When 78% of the people believe one thing and you still would vote against it then you are not representing them. I do not see why this is point is irrelevant. For these reasons I support T