Great. Now we have inexperienced legislators, inexperienced aides, and experienced lobbyists. That's definitely going to be an improvement rather than an absolute catastrophe.
Term limits are like so many populist ideas: they sound great until you think at all about the consequences.
Effective government requires people with a long tenure. That's how you learn how the system operates, that's how you build the relationships that allow you to get things done, and that's how you build the reputation that allows you to get people to believe in what you say and accomplish things.
In my own defense, the kinds of term limits I'm talking about are much lengthier than most people start out wanting, I think. I would term limit senators at 5 terms, perhaps, and representatives at 12 or 15? I think the issue is not so much long tenures per se as losing relevance by spending an entire lifetime in one position in government.
Yeah, I feel like our form of representative democracy is the least bad option. At the very least, office-holders aren't entitled to their office beyond their term unless they're re-elected.
The fundamental problem is that governing is boring, complicated, and unfulfilling to most people. The most impactful elections to citizens' day-to-day lives (i.e., local offices, state legislatures, and primaries for those) have absolutely abysmal participation rates, even in states that bend over backwards with voter accessibility.
I think the point of contention the article and many people are identifying is that that control and feedback mechanism appears to be somewhat broken as evidenced by many elected officials achieving what amount to lifetime appointments that are only terminated by death or disability and even disability seems to be no obstacle in an increasing number of cases.
I'll take inexperienced legislators with fresh ideas who understand how the world actually works over 80 year old careerists whose only skill is fundraising and who still see the world through the lens of Cold War great man politics. Long tenure is how you get entrenched power dynamics, dynasties and eventually dictatorships, and government locked in eternal stasis and unable to adapt to modernity.
I'm really starting to think Thomas Jefferson was right and every 20 years we should just burn Washington to the ground, rip up the Constitution, hang every politician and start over, and make the new blood walk through the corpses on their way to work just to keep the fear of God fresh in their hearts.
FFS, Hillary Clinton had the long tenure. She had experience - implicitly as first lady, and explicitly as governor and secretary of state. She campaigned on policy. She lost to a buffoon conman sex pest with no political experience whose reputation hitherto was playing himself on tv.
Am I saying Hillary Clinton was a better person than Donald Trump? No. I'm not even saying she would have been a particularly good President. But I'm just pointing out how little "reputation" actually matters to American voters, because she was obviously vastly more qualified for the job, and if that mattered it wouldn't have been a contest at all. But the one thing Americans hate more than an experienced politician is an experienced legacy politician. FFS the most popular American President in recent history was an actor who had Alzheimers in office, and got advice from his wife's astrologer.
What he have is already an absolute catastrophe, an utter circus. The competent, well-meaning civic minded politicians you're referring to don't exist, nor does the educated, discerning voter base necessary to put them into office. People voted for Donald Trump the second time because they thought he could control the price of eggs. Like there was a fucking knob somewhere and Joe Biden just didn't want to turn it.
The least we can do is try to minimize the damage any specific idiot (in the voting booth or in office) might cause.
Term limits are like so many populist ideas: they sound great until you think at all about the consequences.
Effective government requires people with a long tenure. That's how you learn how the system operates, that's how you build the relationships that allow you to get things done, and that's how you build the reputation that allows you to get people to believe in what you say and accomplish things.