Finishing Term Limits In Congress

Continuing with the explication of my list of 10 flaws in the US Constitution, as enumerated in this post back in June, today's post deals with Congressional term limits.

My second point involved term limits for the judiciary.

We also need to include Congress, so that all three branches of the federal government have term limits to prevent a professional political class from taking root any further than it already has.

In my opinion, the 22nd amendment to the US Constitution, limiting presidents to no more than two full elected terms, represents unfinished business. As this webpage suggests, even that amendment hasn't been entirely safe from repeal, either. I was rather disturbed to see that Barney Frank and Harry Reid have attempted to repeal this important amendment.

The general issue is one of US citizens allowing the formation of a professional, career class of federal politicians who enact laws and accrue power to themselves. I'm currently reading Glenn Beck's "Common Sense," and find his observations and evidence to reinforce my own.

For example, just to put everyone on the same page, members of Congress vest in their own pension scheme far faster than most private workers. Further, that pension plan, and their health care system, are exclusively for Congress, and have better terms than the average voter's plans.

When, exactly, did we allow Congress to create for themselves a lush, fully-funded career, complete with better health care options than the voters for whom they work?

There are so many reasons why permitting professional, career federal office-holders is a bad idea that it's probably easier to deal with the two major arguments for long Congressional service.

The first is the oldest one I can recall hearing. This argument contends that the people of a Congressional District or state deserve the right to choose their own representative, and nobody should be able to deny them that representative. Perhaps nobody else in the district is as competent at representing them as their current, or favored representative.

To that, I would counter that the immense damage to the US economy and individual liberty by permitting a professional Congressional class far outweighs any presumed "right" of any group to have a long-sitting federal legislator. Unlike our founding fathers, or, really, any group prior to the middle of the 20th century, today's American citizens can see how a federal 'ruling class' have simply shredded the Constitution and gathered powers previously unimagined to themselves. Seniority and mutual back-scratching has resulted in ever-higher taxes and federal spending, even in peacetime.

If Congress were not seen as a career option, few would care to use it to line their own and their friends' pockets.

Further, if an entire district of over half a million citizens ( i.e., 300MM Americans divided into 435 equally-populated districts) can't manage to find more than one qualified representative, or an entire state can't find more than two qualified senators, their problems run much deeper than term limits. It simply can't be good for a Republic to be run by essentially the same people for decades at a time.

We've seen, since the 1930s, an inexorable tendency for members of Congress to "do something," in order to have evidence for voters that they "accomplished" things. The idea that preserving domestic policy and program arrangements and merely handling necessary, recurring appropriations and/or foreign policy matters is long gone as a measure of a successful Congressional term.

Now, if the federal budget hasn't grown and new pork hasn't been delivered to constituents, well, your Senator or Congressman has been deficient and must be removed via the next election.

The other argument I can imagine against term limits is one of experience. On this line of reasoning, we are asked to believe that only experienced members of Congress who "know the ropes," "how to get things done in Washington," etc., are truly effective. Oh, and let's not forget seniority.

I think this is actually the more baseless, intellectually dishonest, but convincing argument. For example, it's why no state will ever enact federal office term limits. In a Congress run by seniority, who wants to deliberately put themselves 50th among states seeking aid and advantage?

Your local Representative or state's Senators will try to convince you that their chairmanship of this or that committee or subcommittee, their ties to other 'respected' legislators, and solid core of staffers, allow them to be maximally effective for you, the voter.

Do you really want to throw away all that hard-won, seniority-based advantage for your District or state just by throwing the bum out?

The truth is, the House and Senate have become cozy clubs that answer to themselves and party leaders more than to their voters. The long-serving members have rigged the game so that the new arrivals are disadvantaged if they don't play ball. By going along, new members are tossed attractive bones, i.e., choice committee assignments, some favors for the folks back home, etc. Cross your party's leader or whip at your peril.

Of course, if there were federal office term limits, this would all change immediately.

My own preference is to limit Congressional service to three two-year terms in the House and two six-year terms in the Senate. That means in total, not consecutive. None of this husband-wife alternating terms. Serve eighteen years total among the two chambers and you are finished.

Without cushy pension plans and time to make lucrative connections which allow Congressmen to become wealthy off of unspent campaign funds, various vendor and lobbyist relationships, etc., it's unlikely that so many will eye federal office so fondly.

Besides, if you could gain election to Congress, and, thus have a chance to make a lifelong career of gathering more power to yourself and your colleagues, controlling your own pay and perks, why would you not stay? Why not simply grow insensitive to the voters, as you busy yourself with becoming well-entrenched, more powerful and untouchable?

Why do people like Charlie Rangel get away with tax evasion? Because even the IRS won't take on someone who looks like he'll die in office before he ever loses his power.

This is fairness? We want servants in Washington, not capricious masters.

Hopefullly, with term limits, we'll get truly civic-minded candidates motivated with one or two good ideas to implement within a few terms. People who have a passion to enact a specific change, then move along in life.

With our federal spending and invasion of liberties so engorged beyond anything imagined by our Constitution's Framers, it's time to attack the problem at its root by limited Congressional terms, and, thus, as Glenn Beck notes, the motivation of our Congressional members to vote for what enriches and empowers them in a career in Congress, rather than what is best in the long term for our country and its citizens.

The Necessity of a Constitutional Convention

I've been giving quite a bit of thought recently to the obvious, increasingly unconstitutional behavior by Congress and presidents of both parties since as far back as Wilson.

Having begun reading and listening to others of similar bent, I am aware that the progressive-backed amendments of the 1910s were passed by Congress to head off a state-called Constitutional Convention. Nothing strikes more fear into the hearts of lifetime federal politicians than the prospect of a Constitutional Convention which could result in massive revisions to the Constitution, and the possibility of more explicitly-worded limits on federal power.

Consider just two simple aspects of the Constitution which probably made sense at its writing, but no longer do.

Congressional term limits. Back in 1789, an average lifespan was in the neighborhood of 35 years. To become a Senator required sufficient maturity and accomplishment that one probably didn't realistically become eligible until one's mid-30s. A 60-year old person in those days was quite old. Thus, three terms in the Senate was likely seen as about as much as most men would serve.

Further, serving in Washington required leaving one's farm or business. Being a Congressman wasn't considered a full-time job. It's likely that nobody seriously envisioned anyone being foolish enough to make federal representative office one's entire career.

Thus, between a shorter lifespan, career obligations and the need to support a family, it's quite possible that the Framers simply didn't conceive of a context in which career service as a US Representative or Senator was possible. Or even desirable.

And what about the Supreme Court? I don't have exact data, but I'm guessing that men didn't ascend to that body much before the age of 40. If a man was old upon reaching 60, then a 20-year term on the highest bench would be what was probably understood to be the 'lifetime' appointment.

Now, it's not uncommon for a Justice to serve on the Supreme Court for more than 30 years. For example, consider this passage from this webpage,

"Although the average tenure of a Supreme Court Justice from 1789 through 1970 was 14.9 years, for those Justices who have retired since 1970, the average tenure has jumped to 26.1 years. Because of the long tenure of recent members of the Court, there were no vacancies on the high Court from 1994 to the middle of 2005. We believe the American constitutional rule granting life tenure to Supreme Court Justices is fundamentally flawed, resulting now in Justices remaining on the Court for longer periods and to a later age than ever before in American history.

This trend has led to significantly less frequent vacancies on the Court, which reduces the efficacy of the democratic check that the appointment process provides on the Court's membership. The increase in the longevity of Justices' tenure means that life tenure now guarantees a much longer tenure on the Court than was the case in 1789 or over most of our constitutional history. Moreover, the combination of less frequent vacancies and longer tenures of office means that when vacancies do arise, there is so much at stake that confirmation battles have become much more intense. Finally, as was detailed in a recent article by Professor David Garrow, the advanced age of some Supreme Court Justices has at times led to a problem of "mental decrepitude" on the Court, whereby some Justices have become physically or mentally unable to fulfill their duties during the final stages of their careers."

Considering the increasing distance so many voters feel from their elected US representative officials, and the courts, I would personally favor terms limits as follows: 3 consecutive terms for US Representatives, 5 in total; 2 terms for US Senators, and; 15 years for Supreme Court Justices, with similar tenure for lower courts, as well.

Given the Constitution's brevity and limited expression of federal power, I don't believe the Framers intended that there arise a professional class of federal office-holders who would remain in that government for over a generation, i.e., 20 years. For the era of our nation's founding, 20 years would have already been a substantial portion of a man's productive adult life. Now, with much longer average lifespans, our Congress and Supreme Court seem to have become less committed to upholding the Constitution, and more committed to self-preservation.