A glimmer of hope
- Thread starter paindonthurt
- Start date
Might want to take a slightly closer look at that list again.
This is the single most impactful thing we could do to fix improve Washington.
Congress isn’t going to put limits on itself. It will have to be a convention of the states.
Congress isn’t going to put limits on itself. It will have to be a convention of the states.
Politics have change, anything and everything we use to think was impossible is now possible. Hate him or like him we have to give credit to Trump. He has changed 70 years of precedence.
Remove age minimum and institute age maximum. Voting age to Social Security age. Once you hit social security age - special ballot for rest of your term.
Will never happen in this iteration of the US, but should be the goal.
Career politicians aren't an awful concept. Lifetime politicians are.
We really need the weak men made from the good times of the 40s/50s to release their grip before they make these times even more worse than they're threatening. Dubya is younger than the last two presidents ffs. He just turned 79.
Will never happen in this iteration of the US, but should be the goal.
Career politicians aren't an awful concept. Lifetime politicians are.
We really need the weak men made from the good times of the 40s/50s to release their grip before they make these times even more worse than they're threatening. Dubya is younger than the last two presidents ffs. He just turned 79.
Much needed for all states.
This, and a balanced budget mandate would change America for the better. Something like 6 terms in the House and you go home and 3 terms in the Senate and you go home. You might run out of capable, qualified candidates to replace them, though. We came within a snail's hair of ending up with an idiot in office for MS District 3 a few years back. That guy ended up burning down a satanic temple altar at the Iowa Crapitol and got himself charged with a hate crime.
Florida has had term limits for state legislatures since 1992. It works well. However, I think three terms for federal house representatives might work better. It probably takes a full term to figure out how it works up there.
Why not some "term" limits on career bureaucrats? Federal judges? Maybe career office staff who know everyone in Washington? Our elected officials are already the weakest of the lot.
I am all for mandatory retirement age for all of the above and a time limit for employment for federal bureaucrats. I am totally against term limits for congressmen and senators. I hope that never happens.
I am all for mandatory retirement age for all of the above and a time limit for employment for federal bureaucrats. I am totally against term limits for congressmen and senators. I hope that never happens.
I think we have a lot of capable candidates, qualified candidates. The issue is the smart ones refuse to get involved because of how dirty it is or they do not have the backing to take down a lifetime congressman with lobbyist backing.
Speaking of lobbyist, time to get rid of them too. Even if you did though there would still be under the table payments just like the old days of recruiting in football
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That will give even more power to unelected staffers whose names we never even know. It will also make the graft even worse because the elected ones will have less time in office to make their money. Beware of the law of unintended consequences.
Something along these lines. I’d be willing to flex it a little.
24 years total
12 max in senate
12 max in house
but you could do both. At least you have to move around and not get entrenched into one thing
We hate congress. We love our congressman.
This is basically an argument for government pork.
Or you could limit their time as well and new congress people regular will naturally create more turnover
you can’t argue logically against people like McConnell, pelosi, etc being entrenched like they are.
im sure you’ll try
It’s a lot harder to turn into a criminal when you don’t gain power over 20 plus years
I think what would be more impactful is a law to prohibit former legislators from becoming lobbyists. I don't see term limits fixing much. After a legislator's term is up, they will remain in Washington as power players with a new legislator being told what to do.
I'd be OK with term limits. But you're right that even more than that we need a mandatory retirement age of about 72 for all elected officials, top bureaucrats and judges.
I mean that’s a problem but mainly bc they spend years there gaining power and making connections
Term limits helps thay
but I’d be glad to have a law saying they couldn’t lobby afterwards
we need to do something about campaign contributions
It won't. Even if 34 states did pass this, all that would do would be to call a Constitutional Convention. And guess who chooses how the delegates will be selected? Congress. They could simply appoint themselves as delegates. Then, it's not clear the Convention would be limited to just this one amendment. They could propose more amendments or even a whole new Constitution. Then whatever they pass would go back to the states and would have to be ratified by 3/4 of the states, or 38 states. By then, it would be many years after some of the 34 passed the resolution calling for the amendment, so you'd have to keep all 34 in the fold plus pick up 4 more. That's a very long way to say, it will never happen. And probably best that a Constitutional Convention never happens.
I’m doing my part to limit them
What does term limits on Congress matter? Everything is being run by the Executive Branch via EOs and bureaucracy staff. Congress has completely ceded its power. And its both parties.
You are a miserable SOB sometimes aren’t you
But everyone loves pork when it's on their plate.
33 was ancient back in the day!
But they definitely didn’t envision lifetime bureaucrats and the size of government today (not even the pro federal government group)
Just eliminate the possibility of it then or limit it as much as possible
I love chewy chocolate chip cookies. So I don’t keep any around the house otherwise I’d be fat as 17.
If you put in place the rest of what I posted, and it survived all the court challenges and became settled law, then I may become convinced on term limits.
But also, I don't know that you could fashion a law that could limit Congressional office staff from being employed by whomever would hire them that would not be ruled unconstitutional. (NCAA ring a Bell?) And those unseen people become very, very powerful. Imagine turning over congressman every 6 or 8 years. The congressman wouldn't stand a chance.
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Not really. Just got curious of how an amendment could be passed the "other way" and Googled it.
Im not a fan of telling people who they cannot pick as their representative. And with our two party system, it can often just be changing a name, but nothing else.
Want an amendment that would make a difference? "There shall not be less than one Representative for every 250,000 people"
One major flaw in our Constitution is that it sets a maximum size for the House - one Representative for every 30,000 persons - it failed to set a minimum number, simply trusting Congress to grow with every census.
The original First Amendment proposed by Madison and passed by Congress provided a mathematical formula for Congress to grow, but the Amendment submitted to the States contained a clerical error and was never ratified.
For no good reason, Congress has stayed at the same size for over 100 years, with the only growth coming when new states were added. As a result, our individual voices in Congress get diluted year after year.
We should have over 1500 Congressmen by now. Maybe more. I would settle for my Amendment, which would put us at about 1375 Congressmen.
This would solve so many problems with our government.
Want an amendment that would make a difference? "There shall not be less than one Representative for every 250,000 people"
One major flaw in our Constitution is that it sets a maximum size for the House - one Representative for every 30,000 persons - it failed to set a minimum number, simply trusting Congress to grow with every census.
The original First Amendment proposed by Madison and passed by Congress provided a mathematical formula for Congress to grow, but the Amendment submitted to the States contained a clerical error and was never ratified.
For no good reason, Congress has stayed at the same size for over 100 years, with the only growth coming when new states were added. As a result, our individual voices in Congress get diluted year after year.
We should have over 1500 Congressmen by now. Maybe more. I would settle for my Amendment, which would put us at about 1375 Congressmen.
This would solve so many problems with our government.
Term limits are just part of the solution, but they are definitely part of the solution. Other things that would help would be:
1) one issue bills (no more throwing in stupid pork to pay for a bridge/road in some state in a bill that has nothing to do with bridges or roads),
2) once elected you can't own individual stocks (you can invest in funds but not individual stocks),
3) lobbyists can only meet with committees and in front of congress (no more individual meetings/dealings, and
4) finally, the one that will never happen but needs to, no more political parties (it's become a team sport and half of each party doesn't even believe in what they are voting for but do it anyway because they are on that team). It's not time for third party, it's time for no parties.
1) one issue bills (no more throwing in stupid pork to pay for a bridge/road in some state in a bill that has nothing to do with bridges or roads),
2) once elected you can't own individual stocks (you can invest in funds but not individual stocks),
3) lobbyists can only meet with committees and in front of congress (no more individual meetings/dealings, and
4) finally, the one that will never happen but needs to, no more political parties (it's become a team sport and half of each party doesn't even believe in what they are voting for but do it anyway because they are on that team). It's not time for third party, it's time for no parties.