From: graham@cs.washington.edu (Stephen Graham)
Newsgroups: seattle.general
Subject: Re: Term Limits Initiative
Date: 6 Nov 92 22:40:32 GMT
Organization: Computer Science & Engineering, U. of Washington, Seattle

In article <1791@rwing.UUCP> pat@rwing.UUCP (Pat Myrto) writes:
>In article <1992Nov5.164050.18646@beaver.cs.washington.edu> graham@cs.washington.edu (Stephen Graham) writes:
>>This should have been said before the election (and I did say it a year
>>ago), but term limits are aimed at other people's congressmen. You always
>>have the option to vote against your own. And that is effective term limits.
>
>Not really.  The term limits makes it much easier for another choice
>to be offered, without having to go through a jillion obstacles.  Since
>when has one party ran TWO candidates for the same office (other than
>in primaries)?  The term limits means that after a certain time, someone
>else gets a chance - so one can choose between two NEW candiates, not
>a new one, and one who gets the lions share of the contributions and
>who has an accumulated war chest of money, which is what gives incumbents
>a virtual lock on the office, unless they do something REALLY nasty.

There is a very simple reason why this occurs: You allow it to. Citizen
involvement in the political process is the only way to change things.

But to address some of your points. Why on earth should a political party
field more than one candidate per office in general elections? It's obviously
not in their best interest. Instead, you have the option at several moments
prior to the election to insert a new candidate. As you mentioned, primaries
are an obvious point of choice. Or you could do the blindingly obvious:
find candidates you approve of and support them. Not just think good thoughts
about them, but contribute substantial amounts of money and time to their
campaigns. After all, how much does it really cost to contest the average
state representative position? $50,000, $100,000? That's a $500 donation
from 100 to 200 people. Now there is the drawback of actually having to
be involved in the campaign.

>Obviously, abuses of power that had all the people up in arms was not
>enough to counter their enormous advantage - the check bouncers, junket
>abusers, and other characters that blew thousands of dollars of tax payer
>money on their own enjoyment managed to get back in.  This in spite of
>the fact that they have shown that they consider the public a resource
>to be exploited, not constituents to be represented.

Or perhaps they didn't find the abuses severe enough. Or they disliked
the other candidate(s) even more. On the other hand, look what happened
in Washington's US Senate race. Brock Adams was knocked out of the race
and two new people ran. Admittedly, they weren't new to politics, but we
are talking about a rather senior position in American politics.

This election, bear in mind, 12% of the incumbents lost. There was a
notable correlation between those deeply involved in various 
scandals and those who lost.

>A good  candidate, but who lacks the mega-bucks, has no chance in
>realistic terms.  With term limits, the playing field is levelled to
>some degree every few years.  It should also discourage those who run
>for office because of how it will line their pockets.  THat will leave
>those some of which might actually want to do some good SOME measure
>of chance.

On the other hand, it might increase the level of corruption. If you're
in office solely to line your pockets, compressing your available time
to twelve years means that you have to be quicker about it. 

>ONE CANNOT GET THE VOTES IF THEY CANNOT BE HEARD.  And the incumbent
>literally drowns out the challenger by use of his huge cash reserves,
>the experienced staff with access to resources the challenger has
>no access to.  Term limits may not be perfect but it is better than
>nothing.  Interesting that the most volcal opposition to term limits
>came from, who else, but the INCUMBENTS.  Not surprising, IMHO.

Strange, I'm rather vocal about it, and I'm not an incumbent. Nor am I
a member of the mainstream political parties. I just feel that it's an
invasion of my rights.

This problem can not be solved immediately, or top-down. There is a solution:
citizen involvement. Join the political party of your choice. Or found
a new one. Work within the party to support candidates you favor. Donate
money to good candidates. Or time, if you haven't any money.

If you don't, don't complain about the candidates offerred for your
consideration.

Democracy can only survive if the people take an interest in it and
responsibility for its functioning. All the advertising in the world
is useless if the voting public bothers to think and act. What's
happened in recent years is that the public has given up, refused
to accept responsibility for politics, and whined about events.

>If its a bust, it can be repealed.  And congress critters that try
>to get it tossed out will be showing what they really care about -
>their perks and privs, not what the people want (why else would they
>try to overthrow the choice of the people, whom they are SUPPOSED
>to represent, not instead to dictate what they should want in their
>opinion).

Of course, the people do tend to re-elect them. Perhaps they're satisfied
with who represents them. They just don't like who's representing other
people. How else do you explain incumbents winning by ten to thirty percent
and term limits by four to five percent. Math dictates that a number of
people voted for an incumbent and for term limits. And if you voted for
the incumbent, you must be reasonably happy with the job they're doing.
-- 
Stephen Graham
graham@cs.washington.edu	 uw-beaver!june!graham