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Post by davidindc on Jun 10, 2012 19:07:58 GMT -5
I don't believe in them. Or, rather, I think we already have term limits. I believe thay are called "elections".
I'm no doubt in the minority among the delegates to Continental Congress 2.0. So I'll leave it to proponents of term limits to propose draft grievance language.
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Post by jondenn on Jun 11, 2012 12:46:36 GMT -5
Here's my summary on term limits from my rounds with candidates and other electoral reformers through my travels as editor of aGREATER.US.
Many folks I speak with believe that if first; gerrymandering were to end so districts were once again competitive, and if big money influence were also limited that term limits might not be so important.
I lost a twitter debate with a professor of poli sci in CA about term limits, as he made the incisive point that instituting term limits first before getting big money out, actually handed even more power over to the lobbyists, as they then have the most experience in the "game."
A noted, and rare, conservative reformer, Stephen Erickson, a NH delegate, has on his website, rebuilddemocracy.org a plan which I have named the PRE Plan, the Plan to Reform Elections which packages ending gerrymandering, campaign finance reform, and term limits. The reasoning here is that campaign finance reform fulcrums with term limits to forge a compromise between progressives and conservatives.
Also of note, Buddy Roemer and Rocky Anderson, both brave reformers, differ on term limits; Buddy for, Rocky against. Rocky told me that if you have, say, a great brain surgeon why do you want to limit their effectiveness? We would have lost great legislators like Everett Dirksen and Ted Kennedy.
Personally, I'm for term limits, because in a country of 315,000,000 people, having a semi-permanent ruling class, just seems wrong to me. It perpetuates and reinforces seemingly intractable issues. And, James Madison was strongly for term limits, which is good enough for me.
Having said all that, I do NOT believe that Term Limits should be a "nail" for the CC2, but a "hammer." It would not be a deal breaker for me if it were a "nail," because of the strategy behind the PRE Plan.
Also, if we had Top Two Open Primaries, that too would be a limiting factor to how long a public official could serve, by making elections more competitive.
*My preferred strategy for the CC2 is for all the submitted grievances to be divided into two categories. "Nails" are items that we could reasonably expect are able to be passed as a constitutional amendment—TODAY: not in a few years or decades. Inotherwords, these are items that 66+%, 75%, 89% even 99% of us can agree upon. And that means progressives, independents and conservatives. Term Limits poll 71% on the low end, and 81% on the high end. So, given that 3/4 or 75% of the States would have to approve Term Limits as a constitutional amendment it doesn't quite, in my opinion, reach that exhalted standard. I'm sorry to say.
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Post by mohavehiker on Jun 14, 2012 0:51:35 GMT -5
Term limits are not the solution. The problem is gerrymandering. No one should have such a safe district that they don't have to listen to their constituents. We are seeing political extremes because of safe districts.
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