Extendable Term Limits
There is a chronic problem with politics. It’s the power of the incumbent. Once someone is elected to office, the chances of the candidate being unseated by a challenger decreases with each successful reelection. The consensus is, that this often leads to complacency, to laziness, and even to graft.
More than one state has dealt with this concern by limiting the number of terms an official may serve. After so many years, you aren’t eligible for re-election. So far, except for the presidency, this effort has failed at the Federal level.
Not everyone is so sanguine about this movement. There is a certain skill that goes into public policy. The philosopher Burke noted that government has a learning curve, and that this education has real value. Certainly neophyte congressmen and legislators need most of their first term just to learn the system; any real competency takes two or more terms.
Currently in Louisiana, our own term limits have just started kicking in, producing a madhouse turnover of the legislative branch, and a loss of all real seniority. The consensus among the pundits is that the winners here will be the lobbyists: they are the only ones left with any long-term experience in state policy. Shifting from incumbent to lobbyists, somehow, does not seem to be what reformers were aiming for.
But there is another problem facing our government today: increasingly acrimonious partisanship. We have reached a point where trying to win the game has become more important than the game itself; victory for one party or the other is more important than being American. We are so busy trying to win skirmishes over our differences, we ignore the overwhelming number of issues where most of us agree.
I have an idea about how we might kill two birds with one stone: Extendible Limits. After a candidate has served the maximum years allowed by law, a vote of the governing body– by private ballot– in which he has served might allow him to stand for re-election: a simple majority would be required for the first post-limit election, and with each successive election bid an increasingly higher required majority would be required: 53%, 56%, etc.
For the head of state, perhaps permission from both bodies would be required, based on the same concept.
Net effect? Increased leadership and collaboration, decreased politics and partisanship. Every freshman representative will be confronted with a long-range choice. Play hardball, take your three strikes, and leave the arena. Or, completely abandon the sports mentality, where ‘win-win’ does not exist, and begin collaborating; begin LEADING.
And the politicians who prefer ugly games will find themselves out of office, but quick. They will serve their terms, and be gone.
The elected officials who have the wisdom and the patience to build our country– and our world– will see their political strength increase rapidly. And all of them, the length of their service, and the height of their influence, will correlate directly with the effort, passion, and intelligence they bring to the job.