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

Contention 1: Term limits are popular. Here in the United States, the nation was founded on the aspect of the rule of the people, by the people, and for the people. The aspects of our nation, as it always been, is to be determined by what the public wants and the government must serve the people. In a poll performed by Gallup, we can see 75% of Americans support Term Limits for Lawmakers [1]. By these simple facts, term limits should be enforced. In the US, several states already impose term limits as 37 of the 50 state governors are bound by term limits and 49 states have term limits or mandatory retirement ages for their Supreme Court's [2]. In the 90's, 24 US states put Term Limits on the ballot for Federally elected officials and 8 states passed the 2 thirds majority in order for it to completely pass while several other states had a majority support [3]. The US Federal Government challenged this and won the case 5-4 in favor of the states being unable to limit terms at the federal level. At this point, the question then comes to what are the types of term limits. To be specific, there are two different types of term limits: strong and weak. Strong term limits is where an elected person can only hold office for a set number of years or terms in their lifetime. Weak term limits are where elected people can only hold office for a set limit of consecutive times. They will still be able to run again, but only after a set number of terms since their last term in office [4]. Ohio, for example, has weak term limits, so Gov. John Kaisch will be unable to run again this upcoming election for governor, but after a few terms, he will be able to run again. An example of strong term limits is like in Kansas. After two term limits, Governor Sam Brownback will be unable to run for Governor again. Contention 2: Congressional Monopoly Key issues with the status quo is that it provides a monopoly on Congress by those who are already in power. In the last 52 years, the House of Representative re-election rate for the incumbents was 97% at the highest, while the lowest was at 82% [5]. Many times it is truly impossible for a candidate, who would even run a good campaign, to win simply do to the name recognition. Even if the candidate had a bad past, they would still likely get in. A good example of this would be the Senate election in Kansas where Senator Pat Roberts, who voted against the Farm Bill and he's from a farming state, still won the election over Greg Orman. I apprehend that the total abandonment of the principle of rotation in the offices of President and Senator will end in abuse. --Thomas Jefferson to E. Rutledge, 1788. [6] Thomas Jefferson, one of the key Founding Fathers, had feared the the ending of the rotation of Senators in and out of office. Jefferson worried that if we did not ensure that there was change, that the US would turn into a Monarchy due to the inability to change those in charge. Even though we would still have elections, the US would still be a Monarchy in Congress as it would be practically impossible for people to go and get elected to get rid of people in office. As the longer these politicians stay in power, they also become out of touch with the very people they represent. There are many career politicians in Washington that have done an extreme harm to their own people as they are no longer a resident of their state, but of DC. One of the key reasons that the Founding Fathers made the Congressional limits so short is so they would be more in tune with the people they Represent. Their constant re-elections by their monopoly on Congress creates a barrier to which harms the average American as they would be able to go and represent their own people, but the people of Washington DC. Another issue that harms people running for office is the Seniority program. This is where people who have been in office for a huge multitude of times will get certain key roles in Congress such as being able to pick Committees and such [7]. This harms newer politicians who are newly elected into office as they won't be able to get as much done as those who have been in office for a long period of time. This will increase the incentive for people to keep career politicians in office as they would normally get more things done then those who are newly elected into office as they wouldn't be able to get as much done at face-value. Creating Term limits, either strong or weak, would end this system as it would force Congress, as a whole, to work together to treat more politicians as equals in their seats. In doing this, people would find incentives to be able to elect other politicians into office as they would be able to know and trust that their own candidates, of which would be newly elected, to be able to do as much in office as those who are more Senior members in Congress. This would create incentive for all politicians to be able to do more, even in the last phases of their terms, to do more as it would ensure that they would have a better standing for their party they would be leaving their office to, or if there is weak term limits, it would help ensure and submit them a case later down the road for them to run again for re-election. This would also help new legislation to become more noticeable and taken more seriously as a multitude of legislation that is purposed by newly elected politicians are not able to get as much attention as those who have been around for a long time. By doing this, a new layer of legislation would be introduced and more change would occur in this nation due to the amplitude of new ideas being able to be implemented. Sources1. (. http://tinyurl.com...)2. ( . http://tinyurl.com...)3. ( . http://tinyurl.com...)4. (. http://tinyurl.com...) 5. ( . http://tinyurl.com...)6. (. http://tinyurl.com...) 7. (. http://tinyurl.com...)