The US Federal Government Should Pass a Term Limit Amendment

I. Constitutionality Term limits violate the congressional qualifications area of the Constitution: "U. S. District Judge William L. Dwyer, in a broad ruling, said the Washington term limits initiative was unconstitutional because it wrongly attempted to add qualifications for congressional candidates beyond those stipulated in the Constitution -- age, citizenship and residency in the state represented. 'A state may not diminish its voters' constitutional freedom of choice by making would-be candidates for Congress ineligible on the basis of incumbency or history of congressional service,' Dwyer wrote. "[1] In addition to this, term limits also violate both the 1st amendment and the 14th amendment: "The judge also said the measure violated the First and 14th Amendments to the Constitution, describing the term limits initiative as imposing 'unduly restrictive" ballot access requirements on incumbent candidates and inimical to the "freedom of association" guaranteed by the First Amendment. '"[1] This has been backed up by a recent Supreme Court ruling: "On May 22, 1995, the U. S. Supreme Court in U. S. Term Limits, Inc. v. Thornton (Sup. Ct. Doc. No. 93-1456) in a 5-4 decision held that Arkansas' constitutional amendment, Section 3 of Amendment 73, providing for limitations on congressional terms of office was unconstitutional in that it established an additional qualification for congressional office in violation of Article I, Sections 2 and 3 setting forth the three basic qualifications of age, citizenship and inhabitancy for Members of Congress. "[2] Term limits violate both amendments to the constitution (including one from the Bill of Rights) and from the constitution itself. II. Experience I will cut this argument into two parts. First, I will explain why term limits are bad for new senators. Term limits also prevent legislators from gaining enough experience to be on the job. Every four to six years, a whole new process of experience training comes in. Without term limits, we can have more experienced members of Congress ruling us. "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. "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. "[3] The Congressman must learn and master a wide variety of issues, and to do so takes time. Term limits prevent Congressmen from gaining the needed experience to effectively govern and make laws. One need look no further than the state government of California, which has enacted term limits and has been the premier example of fiscal ineptitude and poor governance. [3] One can also find the same pattern for 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. [4] Next, I will explain why they are bad for senators about to be ousted: "Term limits is and always has been a bad idea. The reason it's a bad idea is because it limits the choices of people the public has to vote for. If you have a really good public servant and you want to keep him, you can't. You have to get rid of the good candidate and replace him with someone who's inexperienced. By having term limits, we are eliminating the people who have wisdom and experience from political life. Like any job, it takes years to be good at what you do. About the time our elected officials have become good public servants, we're required to throw them out. "[5] "Term limits kick out the good leaders who may deserve to stay in office for excellent work. "[6] In addition to this, it is important to remember that when a Congressman is on his last term, he's not going to listen to the people he is representing because he doesn't have to. He's going to go out next term anyway. III. Power Shifting As a consequence of term limits, as I pointed out earlier, Congressman are now less experienced in performing the duties he was elected for. He now goes to bureaucrats and lobbyists for help in his job. This obviously puts a lot of power into the hands of said bureaucrats and away from Congress. This exacerbates the campaign finance and power problems. This explains it further: "[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. "[4] Term limits put more power in the hands of unelected bureaucrats who become the only ones who know how to work the system. Overall, term limits are an inefficient way to deal with the problems in today's problem, and in certain cases, they can actually increase those problems and even shift power from one group to another. Sources [1]: . http://tech.mit.edu... [2]: . http://digital.library.unt.edu... [3]: . http://voices.washingtonpost.com... [4]:. http://ozarksfirst.com... [5]: . http://www.perkel.com... [6]: . http://www.balancedpolitics.org...