Topic: Government Accountability
Voter-Imposed Term Limits on Congress Suggests an infallible unstoppable way to term limit Congressby nels96
(libertarian)
Friday, June 19, 2009
As long as professional politicians are allowed to make a career of Congress, we will never be able to make constructive changes in the way Congress operates.
There is ONLY ONE infallible unstoppable way to eliminate careeerism in Congress, and that is to do a VOTER-IMPOSED term limit on every seat in Congress. We must NEVER REELECT any Congressman or Senator, NEVER!
Whether he is a good guy, or a bum. Whether he has served only one term or ten. Whether he is a Republican, Democrat, moderate, Indie, Greenie, or 3rd party. Simply NEVER REELECT ANYONE IN CONGRESS. Vote only for challengers.
If we do this for 3 or 4 election cycles, and reduce the reelection rates of incumbents from the current 95% down to 60%, they will absolutely get the message, and may give us a bill for a Congressional Term Limits Amendment. If they don't, we only need to keep it up and NEVER REELECT, which gives us TERM LIMITS by default! Which is a "voter-imposed term limit".
This is the only unstoppable, infallible way to make term limits happen! The American voter must IMPOSE TERM LIMITS on Congress, by NEVER REELECTING anyone in Congress.
In other words, don't let anyone serve more than one term. That's the only way to teach them that the voter is their boss! and that Congress as a career WILL NOT BE TOLERATED!.
Let's wise up, and start voting for our country! NEVER REELECT ANYONE IN CONGRESS!
Forget about who wins the White House. It is in the Congress where the changes need to be made. The 95% reelection rate in Congress has created a corrupt, arrogant class of professional politicians who are only interested in being reelected forever, regardless of the country's problems.
One of the reasons our government is permanently dominated by that class of professional politicians who make a career of getting reelected forever, is that WE, THE VOTERS, are all obsessed with party politics. When has party politics done us any good? Look at the mess we are in!
Half of us are straight-ticket Democrats, the other half are straight-ticket Republicans, and the few Independents' in between are uselessly spread out among Libertarians, Greens, so-called "moderates", 3rd parties, etc, and it has been this way for years and years.
Let's wise up, and start voting for our country! NEVER REELECT ANYONE IN CONGRESS!
Nelson Lee Walker of tenurecorrupts.com , Saratoga, CA
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Good idea, but this solution has been available to voters with regard to the House of Representatives from the adoption of the Constitution and for Senators since 1913. The voters do not avail themselves of it primarily because of seniority. They believe, on the whole, that the duty of their congressionmen is primarily to bring goodies from the federal government into their state of district. This has always been seen by some congressmen as at least one of their major roles as representatives or agents of the people who elect them.
In one of their fits of internal reform--a revolt against the tyrannical leadership of speaker Cannon, the House of Representatives adopted seniority, length of service in the House, as the basis for getting choice committee assignments and chairmanships. The increasing income and power of the federal government led to more "favors" being available through the use of earmarks. This led to a bonus for districts and states which kept re-electing their congressmen and a reluctance to defeat even representatives they disagreed with or disliked by the voters.
When the Constitution replaced the Articles of Confederation, Benjamin hailed the change from the provision in the Articles that forbade the re-election of all delegates, on the ground that the people should be allowed to retain a representative they trusted, just as they patronized their same lawyer or dector because he gave them good service. It is hard to argue with his position.
The key to providing term limits through the voters is to limit the largesse of the federal government so that they voters will concentrate on their senators and representatives on the bases of their position on national policy questions rather than their skill as looters of the treasury.
Posted By: Kathy Jackson
Date: 2009-07-05 11:46:00
The congressional seniority system has made it almost impossible to oppose a powerful congressman or senator, because their ability to "bring home the bacon" so ingratiates them to their consituents. Therefore, even if you want to vote against such an incumbent, you may not have the opportunity because they often have no opposition. Along with this strategy needs to be a grassroots movement at the state level to call a congressional term limits constitutional convention.
Posted By: Nelson Lee Walker
Date: 2009-07-05 12:35:43
The Congressional Record already lists requests from all 50 states for a call for an Article V convention (see foavc.org). Congress is deliberately ignoring the idea, and no one knows what to do about it. And the Supreme Court won't touch it.
When Congresspersons have no opposition in their primaries, it is the painful duty of responsible citizens to recognize that this is a sign of a growing "dictatorship of the Congress". It is then time for the citizens to stop voting for party, or favorite politician, or 'goodies', and instead start voting to save our Republic. That means voting for the strongest challenger regardless of party.
Does this sound naive? What are you going to do when most of Congress runs unopposed for reelection? Unopposed seats have doubled from 40 to 80 in the last few years.
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