Say No to Term Limits
Abe Kaul, NLC Denver
The United States of America is one of the oldest democracies in the world and has a rich tradition of free and fair elections. Part of that tradition is electing great leaders, at times, at all levels of government. While we certainly have had our share of unfit leaders, we have also had some great ones who have truly helped this country go forward. One idea that has always been strange to me is the idea of term limits. In my 32 years on this planet, I have been fortunate to see two great Presidents in my lifetime: Bill Clinton and Barack Obama. Both men were popular when in office, and while this can’t be proven, I believe both would have been elected to a third term if there was no 22nd Amendment. In this essay I will be making the following points: we have a way to deal with politicians who need to be removed; it’s called elections where we let the voters decide, and we lose institutional knowledge with term limits.
The idea of term limits is not needed as we have a way to get rid of politicians who need to go; elections. In fact, the Mayor of Chicago Rahm Emanuel has made the same point. The idea of term limits seems to be a conservative one. For instance, conservatives were the main authors behind the 22nd Amendment to prevent another Franklin Delano Roosevelt. The Supreme Court seems to agree with this principle as well, as they threw out all 23 state laws that imposed term limits on members of Congress (U.S Terms Limits v Thornton). As the liberal Justice Stevens put it, “The Congress of the United States, therefore, is not a confederation of nations in which separate sovereigns are represented by appointed delegates, but is instead a body composed of representatives of the people.”
For a case study of this, we should look a Representative Dan Rostenkowski of Illinois. Representative Rostenkowski was an 18-term member of Congress who ended his time there as the Chairman of the powerful Ways and Means committee. His accomplishments included a 1983 overhaul of Social Security that kept it solvent and a 1986 extensive revision of the US Tax code that was a “bipartisan compromise closed loopholes for corporations, eliminated tax shelters and exempted millions of low-income workers from paying taxes.” However, in 1993 he was indicted on 17 counts related to embezzling money through a stamp-buying deal. Representative Rostenkowski was a longtime Congressman who came from a deep blue Chicago Congressional District but in the 1994 election he lost his seat to his Republican challenger — a political nobody. Even though this Republican challenger was unknown and not well funded, he still beat an 18-term Congressman because the voters of the congressional district felt it was time for Rostenkowski to go.
Institutional knowledge is powerful. With it, we can ensure the best peopleserve their city, state, and country. As was mentioned above the 22nd Amendment was a Republican idea to get revenge on President Franklin D. Roosevelt for being elected to four terms. In addition, with the Republican Party believing in small government, it is in their interest to ensure a lack of institutional knowledge to get more people on their side on the idea of small government — yet another reason why they push term limits. The job of government is develop policies that are good for the country, the more time a person is in elected office the more knowledgeable they become; they know what works and what does not and what is the best way to get good policies enacted. However, with term limits, we see the following, “Sure, politicians who are term-limited might be even more likely to keep their primary residencies in Chicago and Dallas and Altoona instead of Washington, DC. But so what? Keeping representatives just like their constituents means they’ll also be just as ignorant of the issues, and of how to get things done, as most constituents are.”
In addition, having terms limits weakens legislative and executive bodies and give more power to the lobbyists as they are the only people left who can understand what is going on. In term-limited states, lawmakers and their staff have less time to build up expertise, since they are there for a limited time. But like the executive agencies of the state government, lobbyists and interest groups are also there year after year. They are the true repeat players building long-term relationships and the true keepers of the institutional knowledge. This gives them power. Lastly, it is amazing that this is the only institution in America where we seem to value not having experience; thinking that is a good thing. You won’t see someone saying oh no don’t give me the surgeon with 10 years of experience I want the fresh-faced intern, it just doesn’t make sense. With term limits you can see a lot of legislators go on to become lobbyists which can be a problem, “a term-limited legislature is more appealing to people who just want to punch a ticket on the way to a bigger or more lucrative job and less appealing to people who want a career helping the public. In short, it will attract worse candidates, not better ones.”
While term limits themselves are a bad idea another closely related idea that is also not well thought out is a mandatory retirement age. One reason it is a bad idea is a loss of financial security and more financial stress. Workers who face a mandatory retirement age still have bills to pay and that can mean severe cutbacks, “The thing that annoys me the most is that none of this was necessary. I wanted to work and I was able to work. I liked what I did and I was good at it. If I hadn’t been forced out of my job I would have been able to work until I was secure.” While it may have been the case in the past where a mandatory retirement age was fine it seems to no longer be the case today. “
Given the realities of modern democracy, it seems best to not have term limits of a mandatory retirement age. For the sake of our country and our workers let’s let people or the people decide when it is time for someone to go.
Abe Kaul is the COO for the Center for Legal Inclusiveness (CLI) a nonprofit that’s dedicated to creating inclusive workplaces for legal professionals. He’s a graduate of Seattle University School of law where he received a J.D. and received his B.A. in Political Science from Linfield College.
