#11 TERM LIMITS VS CONGRESSIONAL CLIMATE

http://www.tenurecorrupts.com

One of the somewhat valid arguments proposed against Congressional
term limits is that truly ‘worthy’ congressional incumbents would lose
their seats for no other reason than an arbitrary tenure limit, and that
would be foolish. We have few enough ‘good guys’ as it is.

Agreed, but this argument misses the point in at least two ways:

First, no one has any idea how many worthy individuals are discouraged
from running, or how many who do run lose to firmly ‘locked in’ unworthy
incumbents. This is a significant loss, which if reversed by term limits,
could change the whole ‘atmosphere’ in Congress.

This leads to the second point: In a Congress full of only short-term,
‘inexperienced’, freshman-like legislators, the environment of the body
will be transformed from a careerist ‘old boy’ club atmosphere with
hardened artery ancient ‘rules’ about how ‘we’ve always done it this way’,
to a forward looking group of younger people from the ‘outside the Beltway’
world of commerce and industry, who are used to getting things done with
commonsense effectiveness, and who plan to return to the real world
after their service in one or two seats in government.

We all realize that all changes come with tradeoffs, and what we too often
do not acknowledge, is that controversial changes often deliver benefits
which far outstrip the negatives forecasted by opponents who favor the
status quo. I believe this will especially be true of Congressional Term Limits.

Nelson Lee Walker

http://www.tenurecorrupts.com