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Political Change: Constitutionally End Unlimited Elected Terms Served in Congress

Political Corruption: Repeal Unlimited Elected Terms Served in Congress

In the United States of America Congress members (The US Senate and the House of Representatives) have held position by re-election for many terms. This is not so with the US President whom has a maximum of two four-year terms and cannot be re-elected once the second term is complete. The 22nd Amendment supports the idea of term limits for the US president but is there no consideration for such limitation for congress? According to Politifact.com “Congress has 11 percent approval ratings, yet 96.4 percent of incumbent lawmakers were re-elected in 2014.” percent of congress is re-elected Many members of congress would add that the longer you are in office, the more you are aware of the issues and how to get issues resolved in congress. Conversely, unlimited terms can cause for a stagnant congressional staff that cannot reason well with current issues due to the resistance to change and can lead to different forms of corruption on the congressional floor. Unlimited terms prevent bipartisanship by not allowing qualified candidates of all parties the opportunity to hold an office within the Senate and House of Representatives. Therefore, unlimited term limits are modernly unconstitutional and can breed corruption in Congress.

Term limits in congress (meaning restricting the period to be served in office by an officeholder or rotation in office) in the United States is present at both state and cities/towns, and it can be traced back to the time of the American Revolution (Kim & Hovy, 2004). Those who argue for term limits state that the idea encourages rotation in offices, where new individuals with fresh ideas can assume various roles in offices. However, those who oppose the idea argue that it does not give one enough time to exercise his or her expertise or idea, that is, one’s term comes to an end when he or she is at the peak of the career with knowledge accumulated for a long time. The term limits are evident in the United States Senate, where the members of the United States Senate under the Constitution is required to serve the unlimited time of six-year terms. There has been a debate for a long time now with regards to term limits for congressmen, and many people, such as political experts among others tend to be divided when it comes to this topic of unlimited terms in Congress.

There are people who see value in continuity of the government while there are others who are arguing that there needs to be fresh blood in every “Congress”, and each side arguing for and against this idea of unlimited terms has pointed to support their argument. Those who support unlimited term limit for the congressmen and women state that the longer one stays in a job the more skills the person gets since he or she has the opportunity to grow in the position held and became better at it compared to a person who has just started working in a certain position (Kim & Hovy, 2004). In our current electoral process, the congress man/woman has to be reelected at the end of their term however, history has shown that the reelection rate is high. This is a direct relationship to the reason why we cannot begin to see other qualified candidates have chances in these offices. A direct term limit that caps the number of terms that one can serve will eliminate this issue. Those who are arguing for the limiting of the Congress term believe that this will reduce corruption since no one will not be in power for long periods of time. Groups such as U.S. Term Limits established in the 1990’s to support term limits at all levels of government. This group currently has help create 15 state legislatures in eight of the ten largest cities in America adopt term limits for their city councils and/or mayor, and 37 states place term limits on their constitutional officers. (U.S. Term Limits,2016)

Literature Review

According to Otteson (1991), the adoption of term limits was introduced after the United States’ congressional election that took place in the year 1990. “Throw the bums out” was a phrase in the mouths of many people. This phrase was a rallying cry on the voters during the election. During that time the Democrats ran congress for over 40 years. This did not change until the 1993-1995 congressional elections. There were some angry voters who took the initiative of organizing grassroots movements with the intention of doing away with incumbents. They were blaming these incumbents, that is, congressmen and women that have been in office for many years for many governmental failures.

Polsby argues that Congressional terms limits are unconstitutional and will weaken the influence of Congress in the U.S. political system (Polsby, 1993). The author also believes that term limitation is unconstitutional. In the case of Powell v. McCormack, 1969, the Supreme Court held that no limitations could be added when it comes to qualification to the congressional office. Through relying on this, the term limits turn out to be unconstitutional. Polsby also argues that congressional term limits violate conservative principles.

After examining the constitutionality of term limits, Barnicle concludes that "…the congressional term limits are unconstitutional when enacted through voters' initiatives, but may be properly enacted through a federal constitutional amendment" (Barnicle, 1992, p. 415). Additionally, entirely putting into place term limits, irrespective of their implementation, is seen to be inconsistent with the original intention of framers of the Constitution. For a long time now, changes, such as those in the judicial decisions and electoral process among others have been carried out through a constitutional amendment. Congressional terms limit should also take place through a constitutional amendment.

Reed and Schansberg (1994) argue for congressional terms limitation. They believed that two terms in office are enough time for one to ensure he or she has practiced all the new ideas and policies. There are some congressmen and women who have been in office only for one term, yet the positive change they have made may have been tremendous. There are others who have been in office for two terms, but no change can be determined in the areas. More terms in office will only bring in the element of stagnation. A person who has not managed to accomplish any positive change in the two terms period is unlikely to attain the changes even if more time is added.

“Most recently in 2015 more than 30 Republicans in the House and Senate were known to be on the record to support an amendment to the Constitution that would impose term limits on Congress.” (Kasperowicz, 2015) Term limits proposals have been especially difficult to pass but that is not stopping some of our political leaders from trying.

The big question is whether congressmen and women should be allowed to serve unlimited terms. This is a topic, which has had a very intense debate for a long time. This is evident in some of the literature previously done. There are some authors who feel that congressional terms limit is unconstitutional, and should not be practiced. Others feel it is a good thing because it helps bring into the office new people with new ideas. Ultimately imposing term limits will be a positive impact on this country.

Body Paragraphs

Unlimited congressional terms limit is seen as a positive move towards ensuring independent judgment of the Congress. There is a probability for one's judgment to be influenced by other parties and bodies due to serving for a long time. "In one of the few cases where Congress itself has established term limits, service on the House and Senate Intelligence Committees is limited on the grounds that long-term membership might cause Members to develop a loyalty to the intelligence bureaucracy that would undermine their ability to exercise critical and independent judgment over it" (Green, 2016, par. 9). This evidence is also made due to conducts of people since politicians are in an era where special interests and scores for federal agencies continually lobby for funding, and this brings in imminent danger that a congresswoman or man may be enmeshed in culture, which is insulated from the society they represent. There are congressmen and women who have ended up being captured by the alien federal culture together with the frustration resulting from sclerotic representation emerging from all political stripes incumbents’ routinely getting reelected. This alone is not only the reason why people are calling for congressional terms limit.

Also, unlimited congressional terms limits are a reality check. The introduction of terms limit will bring in a reminder that is bracing and inescapable when it comes to how life is like in the real world. A good example of this can be drawn from the experience of the former Senator George Mcgovern. After serving for 18 years in the Congress, Senator George Mcgovern tried operating and succeeding in a small business. The senator failed, and he stated that "…I wish I had taken my time during my tenure to understand more about the problems that are being faced in the private sector…I am forced to pay for taxes, meet the payroll of the business…I had done some analysis and gained knowledge with regards to what it took to perform that when I was serving in Washington…" (Kim & Hovy, 2004). Making sure that individuals are exposed to the tough life that is outside the Congress will be a good idea with regards to inculcating the complex understanding of the limits and logic of federal regulation.

The opponents of congressional terms limit argue that this move will harm small states. There are small states that will be disadvantaged by terms limit since they have a small population with very few representatives. This argument was made by South California Senator Ernest Holling, Democrat Senator. He made this on behalf of the Southern states, and he went ahead to state that throughout the past, small states have been trying to compensate this problem through reelecting incumbents continually irrespective of their views on issues so as to accumulate power possible through seniority. He went ahead to argue that without this kind of seniority, these smalls Southern states will be at the mercy of larger ones, such as the California through the virtue of their size. The larger ones will have the ability to easily send scores of representatives to the Congress and will be sure of occupying seats in various committees that are important, hence influencing imbalanced changes and development.

References

Barnicle, B. (1992). Congressional Term Limits: Unconsitutional by Initiative. Wash. L. Rev.,

67, 415.

Kim, S. M., & Hovy, E. (2004, August). Determining the sentiment of opinions. In Proceedings

of the 20th international conference on Computational Linguistics (p. 1367). Association for Computational Linguistics.

Otteson, J. C. (1991). Constitutional Analysis of Congressional Term Limits: Improving

Representative Legislation under the Constitution, A. DePaul L. Rev., 41, 1.

Polsby, N. W. (1993). Some arguments against congressional Term Limitations. Harv. JL &

Pub. Pol'y, 16, 101.

Reed, W. R., & Schansberg, D. E. (1994). An analysis of the impact of congressional term limits.

Economic Inquiry, 32(1), 79.

Kasperowicz,P (2015). GOP members seek constitutional amendment to impose term limits on

Congress. Retrieved from http://www.theblaze.com/blog/2015/01/12/gop-members-seek-constitutional-amendment-to-impose-term-limits-on-congress/

U. S. Term Limits (2016) “Citizen Legislators, Not Career Politicians.” Retrieved from https://www.termlimits.org/

Green, D. (2016). Term Limits: The Only Way to clean Up Congress. Retrieved from

http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/1994/08/bg994nbsp-term-limitsnbsp-the-only-way

Kim, S. M., & Hovy, E. (2004, August). Determining the sentiment of opinions. In Proceedings

of the 20th international conference on Computational Linguistics (p. 1367). Association for Computational Linguistics

Politifact.com (2014) “Congress has 11% approval ratings but 96% incumbent reelection rate, meme says.” Retrieved from https:// http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2014/nov/11/facebook-posts/congress-has-11-approval-ratings-96-incumbent-re-e/