I’d support the abolishment of both - term limits of 0, and the move to an actual democracy, which is not what “choose which nigga talks for you” accomplishes
Yeah so direct democracy can work for a town. And that works great until one eyed Phil (who runs a country made up of many towns) comes around and has a bigger army than your little town could put together. You can all meet in your town hall and debate about what to do about old one eyed Phil and his army, for all the good it’ll do ya.
Edumication thing indeed.
So is this what libertarians think is a good idea nowadays?
No, because 75 is too old. I’d support an age limit of 65. I’d also support a minimum age of 25 for the House/Senate and 35 for the Supreme Court.
I’d also like to see term limits imposed on the house, senate, and Supreme Court. As well as a limit on the total amount of time a judge can serve as a judge in the federal court system.
I really do think term limits are a better solution than a hard age cap. Term limits would help address the age issue, and it would also make “career politician” a less viable career. That’s a bigger problem imo - politicians doing politics for profit, as a career, rather than as a civic duty. That’s a big part of why we have younger Republicans like MTG, Lauren Boebert, JD Vance, etc. whom a hard age cap would not effect for another couple decades at least.
Not an original idea by far, but I was chatting it up with a few friends recently about this and we thought a civic duty term made far more sense (think jury duty). So much needs to be fixed in the process, like the bill riders addons (a horrible scourge to our political system) and lobbyist (scum). But imagine you were picked (randomly) to serve for 3 year stints, with those getting picked for a 2nd and maybe even 3rd term, serving as some Senior politician. Clearly it needs much more thought, but far better potential because you have to participate and accountable.
Before you knock it down, think about the intelligence required here. Boebert is an absolute moron. Bills before the system need to be something the average person can understand (legal verbiage is such a pointless waste and almost unnecessary). You would need to participate in collaboration with others, understand how to be honest and forthcoming with your goals.
We can’t hold Politicians accountable (not the system today) and this could be an answer.
I think having some kind of required civics course for the random sounds appointees would do well. Legal language exists for reasons that go beyond being deliberately obtuse, so it could still be used to try and reduce ambiguity
Yeah, I think I’m talking about the purposeful legal jargon used to deceive or be arguable vague and 20 pages long for no reason but to hide that fact. I’m all about precision, but it needs to be something an average person would comprehend if we were to adopt this method.
Say the state of readiness of the American healthcare system, their divisive politics and poor education standards might do that to life expectancy. That is not an excuse, every country had covid
Agreed. Although I do not believe this trend will be consistent for the next 4-5 decades. The US will definitely get universal healthcare in at least 2 decades. Making constitutional amendments for such short term issues is short sighted in my opinion.
Absolutely. Maybe younger. Politicians shouldn’t be able to vote on issues that will have major effects that they won’t have to live through. I also think we should disenfranchise people <average life expectancy> minus 18 years. Give politicians a reason to support policies that increase public health to increase the voting age.
That’s not how that works. The seniors being exploited are not the well retired ones with the free time and health to go vote. And what happens when we become seniors? Are we to be punished for the sins of a particular subset of one generation?
Not for House or Senate. Age just isn’t a close enough metric for what you’re trying to fix.
If you’re concerned with age-related decline, vote them out if you see signs of it, or if they would reach whatever age your limit is during the term.
If you’re concerned about longevity in office, use term limits or reform campaign finance such that longevity in office doesn’t grant too high of an incumbent advantage.
SCOTUS, sure. I think Canada has appointments until 75. Does not seem meaningfully different from appointments for life except less randomness on open slots.
I’d support term limits. Some people are still very sharp at 100. And as recent history shows, people immediately forget lessons learned we learned in WW2 when we (the world) kicked Hitler in the cock.
Plus, as others as said, you have some politicians that are young and as stupid (and dangerous) as they come, wanting us to join the Russians.
Not at all. Not all old people are idiots and not all young people are geniuses. Get rid of the minimum age requirement for prez too.
There should also be no “terms” and “term limits”. You’re voted in. If at any point you face a vote of no confidence, there’s an election. That might be 30 days in, it might be 15 years later. Sometimes it takes long periods of time to fix issues. And with a 4 year cycle where 3.99 of it is campaigning, nothing can get done.
No, that’s actually how most functioning governments work. Just Americans are too ignorant to know anything about the rest of the world.
Americans love to say “it’s an experiment”. It’s just a Republic and it has failed. A parliamentary democracy works and is why everyone else does it that way.
And you’re ignorant. Go learn how a parliamentary democracy works. And how every functioning democracy in the world, uses it. Then reevaluate your idiocy.
I’m onboard with 65 as the maximum age anyone can run for Congress but I don’t have a problem with people 65+ finishing their terms provided they’re actually competent. I’d like to see mandatory cognitive decline testing for anyone running for Congress, appointed to the SC or appointed to any high position in the executive branch.
It’s absolutely ridiculous that we’re allowing people with 5-7y remaining life expectancy to plan our future 20, 40 or 100y out - they just don’t have the skin in the game that someone in their 20s of 30s does.
On top of all of that I’d like to see vigorous corruption testing, SC justices and congresscreatures shouldn’t be bought and paid for the way they are now.
“After many decades of civil service, it is time for the state to give back to our hard working representatives. Therefore they will be retired in januray of the year following their 65th birthday”
“January 6th has for the last few years been a reminder of an embarrassing moment in our history, well no longer! January 6th shall henceforth be known as a day of celebration, celebrating not only long and faithfull service but also new talents, skills and hope for the furue! Join us, as we once again rejuvinate our government to keep our nation strong and dependable!”
I agree on the legislature, but not the court. The legislature has to plan for the future. Their age should be below the average life expectancy. They need to have a foreseeable future for us to allow them to plan ours.
I would resolve the instability of the court by eliminating its fixed size. One new justice shall be appointed every other year. In the odd-numbered years, between election cycles.
This will tend to increase the size of the court over time. The average term length is currently about 16 years, but that is with strategic retirements. I would expect the average term to increase to 24 to 36 years, leaving us with a court of 12 to 18 justices.
Honest question, what do we do that we are now living longer, and have better quality of life and medical advancements? With AI progressing exponentially, this will likely increase average lifespans in developed countries. You might be arguing against your own comments here when you hit 65 and realize you still maintain mental acuity and are thriving.
Personally, I feel like we should be spending our time and focus on fixing a number of other issues. Namely lobbying, special interest groups tied to anti-consumer companies, ‘slap on the wrist’ fines for billion dollar companies, predatory lending, student loans. I mean the list goes on. These things aren’t an age problem, it’s a corruption problem.
You might be arguing against your own comments here when you hit 65 and realize you still maintain mental acuity and are thriving.
I’m not running for office nor scotus. But if I were, I’d hope reason would dictate sensible policy, not magical thinking about whatever far-off technological theoretical you might imagine.
In 1900, the average life expectancy of a newborn was 32 years. By 2021 this had more than doubled to 71 years.
But life expectancy has increased at all ages. Infants, children, adults, and the elderly are all less likely to die than in the past, and death is being delayed.
This remarkable shift results from advances in medicine, public health, and living standards. Along with it, many predictions of the ‘limit’ of life expectancy have been broken.
I’m not saying we’ll be doubling lifespans, but if you looked at the big picture, we’ve made HUGE strides and advances in a very short period of time. Especially if you consider how long humans have been around. Now we have CRISPR gene editing for example, and very obviously artifical intelligence/machine learning will grow exponentially fast.
I also didn’t say anything about ignoring policy in lieu of science, and pointed out several areas I personally feel could use attention. However that is my own opinion… Just like you on running/not for office.
It is also clear that some aged people are ‘sharp’ to the end, just as some can be debilitated earlier to disease and age. Sensible policy is also welcome. I just don’t think we should lump everyone together using an arbitrary metric.
It’s not the age, the length, or how many times you’ve been reelected, but getting elected in the first place has such a high barrier, massive gerrymandering, and more.
I think we need staggered term limits. Make it so you can only serve up to two terms in a row and then you are forced to take a term off. No lifetime appointments.
That and approval voting from federal to local elections.
Term limits for representatives and Senators are actually very toxic. It’s a great way to make the parties monolithic and entrench party patronage systems even more.
Okay this isn’t a topic that you can do a tiny take on. You’ve had the Tl;Dr already above so before I tell you why Term Limits are a bad idea let me tell you some good ideas. I’ll do my best not to write a whole paper though. :)
The House of Representatives can be enlarged to the point that lobbying loses it effectiveness versus the power of constituents. According to the original ratio of Representatives to people we should have ~10,000 Representatives now. Now I get that some people see that as extreme. That’s 1 Representative per 30,000 people. But the current ratios are around 1 Representative per 750,000 people. There’s a lot of room for negotiation in there and the number of Representatives is set by law, not the Constitution. Even halving that ratio would make it easier for people to run for office, and easier for people to engage with their Representative. Plus, with modern technology, there’s no reason we need to feel beholden to a building. Representatives can spend more time in their district, working in committees and voting remotely.
Many people are more concerned with senility or operating under outdated knowledge than they are with politics as a career. For this we can institute an Age Cap instead of Term Limits. Like the military we can designate being an elected official as a sensitive job and require retirement after a certain age. (The military requires it at 62) This largely avoids the problems with Term Limits while making sure we aren’t choosing a single generation to be the bulk of our Representatives and Senators.
Lastly, we can take steps to get dark money back out of politics and enforce bribery laws that are already on the books. Sadly though this has turned into an issue for SCOTUS reform and abuse of congressional oversight for the FBI.
So Term Limits. They create three massive problems. The Party becomes the brand instead of the politician. Cycling legislators too often creates an experience issue that can be exploited by lobbyists and party officials. Finally, rich donors and think tanks have more money than the current system has excess legislators. There’s more than this but these are the big three poison pills.
When we go to vote we vote based on a politician’s brand. It’s an American thing among western democracies. Other countries have recognizable party leaders but we’re fairly unique in voting by individual name. This makes name recognition the number one hurdle any aspiring politician must get over. And the reason ads use the name they support 10 times in 30 seconds, while almost never mentioning the opponent. And when they do it’s in audio/visual scare quotes. It’s why incumbents have such an advantage. They’ve been on your news feed for years building their brand.
Term Limits turns that on its head. As we cycle through politicians there will be very little incumbent advantage. There will be far more people vying for your attention. Which means money. It’s very expensive to get your name out there. So whose going to pay that bill? If the candidate isn’t wealthy enough then it has to be PACs or the Party. (99% of us are not wealthy enough) Yes candidates can ask for donations, but unless they’ve got an independent source of name recognition, like being a renowned football coach, people aren’t going to be very forthcoming. So we discover the method by which the Party becomes the brand. People need a familiar face to give money to. It’s the same reason corporations use well known actors in their ads. Now this means another thing though. If the Party controls the branding, because it’s how the money comes in, then the Party controls the money. And this also means they control who the money goes to. They get to pick the party candidate without ever interfering in the vote. This actually already happens to an extent. But Term Limits would pour gas on the fire, making this effect much worse.
So now we have Party chosen legislators we need to move on to the next problem, experience. Career politicians know who to call for technical advice, or at the very least they know when they should seek it. Those connections don’t exist with freshmen and junior representatives. They’re completely at the mercy of experienced staff, lobbyists, and the party that likely provided their staff. (You want our money, you use our people) For example, with Term Limits, they’d be getting forced out right around the time they figured out which military officer they could rely on for a no bullshit assessment of a weapons program. Then there’s experience in crafting legislation.
Just recently SCOTUS had a case about releasing inmates with drug convictions and the eligibility terms. The case hung on the proper English grammar of a list. Only it’s SCOTUS so it’s actually an exercise in making the grammar twist their way politically. And that’s with experienced legislators. We already know how the parties would solve this problem though. Pre-written legislation is a thing in most of our state legislatures. The lobbyists actually write the bill, complete with [insert state name here] type entries. One such example, the HOPE act made it harder for people to get food stamps. The exact same wording, in nine states. This kind of rubber stamp legislature will only get worse with Term Limits. Because politicians need to get re-elected, or at least until they reach their lame duck period. And anyone who doesn’t toe the line doesn’t get their campaign funded.
Which brings us to point three. Why would a lame duck Representative or Senator keep toeing the line? Because they’re human, they probably have a family, and they’d like to get paid to stay in the game doing what they know. It’s a lot better then the uncertainty of a career switch, and the Party is always hiring. In fact maxing your term with good behavior could become a pre-requisite for higher party positions. Don’t worry there’s always an exception for the inordinately wealthy. It’s that wealth that’s going to pay for the cushy landing of ex legislators in board rooms, think tanks, and party positions across America. The only difference is it might become a time limited deal instead of an actual sinecure like it is now. But it would still be life changing money and networking for most people. The important part here though is you must remain loyal to the party, you must vote the way they tell you to vote, and you must stump for your pre-selected replacement.
The two major parties already have way too much influence in our system. And the natural competitor stops being independent candidates or third parties. It becomes the lobbyists themselves. After all if campaigns become even more aligned with money, then who has more money than private multi national corporations?
We do not need people like Mitch McConnell who genuinely think 600 dollars is this crazy large amount of money you can live comfortably on for years. This is a real argument he has made.