I don't think hard term limits make sense, but if every Democrat in Congress promised to voluntarily retire at 75, I think public support for the party would shoot up 10 points.
Comments
Log in with your Bluesky account to leave a comment
I think you should be allowed to hold federal office for no more than 18 combined years. That's Congress, President, Judicial, everything. We need to cycle these folks out before today's babies become voters.
(IMO a political retirement age should be higher than a regular work retirement age since you can and do want retired people who had full time careers outside politics to run for office.)
And if you do put term limits in the legislature, they need to be loooooooong. It usually takes several terms just to get competent at the job since you often only see things once every two years.
The limits tend to empower lobbyists by reducing member-level expertise, but that can be mitigated by more staff lines for offices, e.g. policy experts who work for the legislature, committees and members.
Hard term limits require amending our constitution and I'm not too interested in opening that up to meddling until/if we get Citizens United repealed nor during this period of extreme partisan divide.
Plus, if we are going to amend constitution I think there are higher priorities than congressional term limits like SCOTUS term limits and anti-gerrymandering for example.
It’s my understanding that Congress may arguably be able to effectually limit terms by setting up a senior justice model where after so many years they move onto other areas of the judicial system.
I don’t look at these as necessarily mutually exclusive, particularly since all need to be done. I have no problem with prioritizing but holding something hostage until something else gets accomplished is a great way to not get anything done!
My first hand experience with City Council members is that the longer someone is in office, the better the odds that they will eventually be worn down by lobbyists, particularly if re-election becomes hinged on direct and indirect lobbyist campaign support.
On the other hand, retired teachers, federal workers, and retired working class people generally should be able to run in their 60s and 70s. Their ability to take time off work to run for office earlier in their lives is so limited compared to e.g. lawyers or wealthy people.
I stand by, that they can have advisory roles, so that information and knowledge is useful if they want it to be, but they shouldn't be in positions of power after 65.
See followup. Need room for non-career politicians to retire from other work then run for office and serve for a few terms. There's so much variation in cognition and energy I don't think hard limits make sense.
Comments
https://rollcall.com/2022/12/13/house-democrats-reject-committee-term-limit-proposal/
We don’t need term limits, that’s what elections are for!
anyone of us with grandparents in their 70s knows that 65 is more than enough time
If 65 is good for the staff, it's good for the leadership.