Term Limits are a popular issue. The most recent poll I’ve found is a 2013 Gallup poll which found that 75% of Americans want term limits. But will they help?

On Facebook, I saw a short video about Term Limits. It says term limits:

1. Eliminate Career Politicians
2. Promote New Ideas
3. Fights Corruption

I wrote a comment under it:  How does it fight corruption?

Do Term Limits limit Corruption?

One user said: I live in area that has been run by the same group of men for the last 40 years. Anyone new that was brought into the fold was hand picked.

I personally broke that cycle and got in on a Write-in. My sons and myself stood at our municipal building from 7am till 9pm talking to people and changing the outlook of the people who voted. In the end the vote was 24 to 17….. I won and since then we have seen a great improvement.

That’s a great answer. But notice, this change didn’t happen due to term limits. From what she said, it happened because her group made the effort to make a difference and promote a change.

Will term limits stop career politicians?

I have no problem with term limits. But I imagine if there’s a group of elite who are running something, they’ll just, very early, pick a new person to run. They’ll ensure his/her name gets lots of press in the two years before the election. And they’ll give him/her their endorsements, leftover campaign funds, mailing lists, their organization, introductions to donors, and anything else they think will ensure their group stays in power.

For the same reason, term limits won’t stop career politicians. Even if a senator has to stop running, he or she could be the head of staff for the new, incoming senator.

The “revolving door” to lobbying

And they could do what they do now. When they lose a race, many eagerly go through “the revolving door” and snap up a lucrative lobbying position. OpenSecrets reports that of the 75 members of the 2013 Congress that were not re-elected, 41 continued to work. Of those, 2/3 go to work for lobbying firms or lobbying customers. Many staffers have careers in politics as well. The Washington Post reports that over the last 10 years, 400 members of Congress and 5,400 staffers have gone to work for lobbying firms.

And if term limits won’t stop career politicians or limit corruption, it’s probably not going to promote new ideas.

How can we pass a term limit amendment?

So term limits aren’t the solution. But if the revolving door could be closed, and other anti-corruption measures passed, term limits could be much more effective.

But how can we get a term limit amendment passed? Back in 1995, when the Supreme Court struck down state laws that limited terms for their own members of Congress, only 23 states had passed such laws, far from the 34 needed to pass a constitutional amendment.

In the next article, we’ll show how PeopleCount can help.

In the last article, we saw that term limits, by themselves, probably won’t limit corruption, promote new ideas or stop career politicians. It’d be another huge effort to get Congress to pass the anti-corruption legislation needed to really make term limits work have these effects. Plus, it’s unlikely that Congress, or even the states, would pass a term limit amendment. But PeopleCount can help.

How about better communication with each other?

PeopleCount proposes a 3-prong solution. First, it helps us communicate with each other about what we want. 75% of us want term limits. If we all knew that, we’d start expecting it. We’d not only work harder for it, but our representatives would take notice.

Imagine that America votes on PeopleCount on this issue. We’d see that it’s wanted. Contrast this with what happens today.

Every time I sign a petition on Change.org, I have to visit the petition, wonder who is receiving it, uncheck the “Display my name and comment” box, click the Sign button, and then handle the subsequent email they send me about it. And I don’t see the results. Usually, I never hear about status, much less if it made a difference. Often, like for this issue, there are multiple petitions like this that are going to multiple groups. Plus there are petitions with other organizations (that also don’t show results).

On PeopleCount, you’ll sign in once, answer the question and immediately see the results. You can log in anytime later to see new results and even to change your answer. You’ll see the results for your district and your state, as well as the country. You’ll also see links to more information, including surveys if they exist.

Better communication with our politicians

Our politicians will see the results, too. Plus you’ll be able to check a box saying you want monthly updates. You’ll actually get follow-up information from your public servant.

And you’ll grade each update! What do you think’s going to happen if your incumbent doesn’t do what people want? He’ll get a bad grade. And that grade will be public. That’s just the beginning of the pressure. Challengers will also be able to report. They’ll compete to satisfy us.

So you’ll have 4 kinds of communication on an issue you care about:

1. We all say what we want on that issue
2. We each say if it’s important enough to get a report
3. We receive monthly reports from the incumbent and each challenger
4. We grade those reports, and share the cumulative grades

The biggest part of accountability is answerability- making them tell us of their progress and plans on the issues that are important to us. And this is in a relationship of accountability. We judge them. This is the basis of PeopleCount.

The term limit amendment will be an issue in the election

This is where the rubber meets the road, where you hold politicians accountable to act on the issues important to you.

Currently, I have no choice about a term limit amendment. I know 75% of Americans want them, but I don’t know if the people in my district want them nor where the incumbent and challengers stand on the issue. With PeopleCount, I’ll know.

And more challengers will be able to run. With PeopleCount, politicians will be able to communicate with us at very, very low cost. My guess is that in my district most people are happy with the incumbent on most issues. With PeopleCount, someone could easily run for office and say they’ll continue to support the incumbent’s popular positions. And they’ll get grades similar to the incumbent’s. But on the issues where the politician disagrees with the people, the challenger can support the people’s position and get better grades.

When the election comes, we’ll have a much easier time electing someone who’ll serve us better.

In the third part of this series, we’ll see two more ways that PeopleCount will help us get a much better solution than just term limits.

In this article, the third in a series about term limits, we’ll see that PeopleCount will let us create not just a better term limit amendment, but a more robust solution.

In the previous article, we saw that PeopleCount will allow us to more easily get legislation passed that most citizens want. It lets us communicate with each other, communicate with our politicians effectively to hold them accountable, and let us choose representatives who’ll serve us better.

More choices on issues, too

In the previous article, I included two links to petitions. You’ll see they simply set term limits for Congress. That might not pass. Lots of people want the option of keeping a politician they like, and members of Congress may well explain, as I did in the first article, that term limits will be of limited help.

But on PeopleCount, you’ll easily have more options. The first might be a simple vote for term limits for Congress. But there’ll also be a second option, to allow states to say whether or not their own members of Congress should have term limits. My guess: That second solution will be even more popular and will more easily become law.

Congress currently has a 20% approval rating. Maybe the desire for term limits is really due to disapproval of Congress. If, with PeopleCount, we can turn that around, term limits may cease to be an issue. With the per-state option, states can easily have term limits. And they’ll easily be able to get rid of them, too, if they end up not liking them. It’s a more flexible solution as well as possibly more popular.

More easily pass supporting legislation

In the first article, it was clear that more legislation is needed to end corruption. Te revolving door between lobbying firms and Congress and staff positions would need to close. When you go to PeopleCount to vote on term limits, you can also easily vote on these issues.

Plus, it’s very difficult to motivate people about term limits. I don’t know, but I’d guess that the top 3 term limit groups have a few million members at most. But anti-corruption groups have another million members or more. And environmental groups have about 20 million. When all these groups send their people to PeopleCount, they’ll all see the term limit issue and easily cast a vote. And they’ll all see the anti-corruption issues and vote on those, too.

Rather than each issue requiring a massive, expensive movement…

What I want is for us to be able to communicate easily and inexpensively with each other and our politicians. We will grade them and share those grades. Both incumbents and challengers will reach us. We’ll have real choice to simply elect people who’ll serve us. If the incumbent stops delivering, we can put pressure on them immediately. Being in communication with us, they will be able to run effective low-cost campaigns. This isn’t direct democracy. But if they work with us, they can rely on our support and not have to be accountable to wealthy campaign donors and the parties.

When the next important issue arises, we can quickly speak up about that, too, by simply checking a box or two. No new organization is needed. No massive fundraising effort is needed. No campaign is needed to call your member of Congress or sign petitions. We guide Congress and they respond. We free them from being accountable to the wealthy and to the extremist parties. They’ll just be accountable to us.

But I can’t do it alone. I very much need at least your minimal support by adding your email address to our announcement list. I am very short of funds as well. Please donate.

Earlier I posted an article about how term limits probably won’t eliminate career politicians, stop corruption or promote new ideas. But term limits have their advantages. Let’s look at those.

Big Advantage: Competition

Incumbents have an overwhelming advantage in elections. Despite low approval ratings of Congress as a whole, incumbents are re-elected about 90% of the time. They have an already-built campaign organization, established funding, and name recognition.

Term limits will certainly bring more competition to elections. When a member of Congress resigns, there’s suddenly room for real competition in the primary, where most elections are decided. This is because one party often has a clear majority in a district. In many states, this is due to gerrymandering. This leads to more and more uncontested races in the main election.

And primaries are poorly attended. Often it’s mainly the party faithful who vote in a primary, and primaries tend to re-nominate for the incumbent at a rate of about 98%.

Why competition is important

Competition is vital. This article, which is against term limits, says that: “Often, the only thing that keeps members in line is the threat of losing their next primary.” They are saying that if every 10 years, 20% of representatives can’t run for office again, this is a large number of officials with no accountability.

Given the advantages that incumbents have and the difficulties challengers face, I’d say this threat of losing their seat is already weak. In general, incumbents do not need to be very accountable to voters. Before elections, much of what they do is invisible. In elections, challengers much wage huge campaigns to become known and overcome the incumbent’s advantages.

And in our current system, most voters don’t pay close attention to candidates’ records. While this is something PeopleCount will help rectify, it currently hides what’s really happening in Washington. Even if a challengers works very hard these days, they’re going to have a difficult time educating voters about what the member of Congress should have done differently.

What’s ideal?

Term limits could help ensure there’s turnover. But they’re not ideal.

Ideal would be:

• Increasing accountability, such as with PeopleCount
• Increasing communication between voters and politicians
• Increasing the importance of issues instead of parties
• Making campaigns less dependent on funding

The advantages and disadvantages of term limits

The advantages of term limits include increasing competition and turnover. The huge advantages of incumbents will be short-circuited.

The disadvantages of term limits include making good, proven, experienced politicians unable to continue leading. Politicians could still work for politician offices and for parties and advocacy groups, but we’d have fewer members of Congress with expertise in legislating. And term limits thwart the will of the people, in ways. In the next article, we’ll look at some possible compromises.

Term limits are a very coarse way of trying to change Congress. To some people, they limit the choices of citizens. So how about we compromise on term limits?

1. Compromise on term limits: Let each state decide

Creating term limits for Congress would require a constitutional amendment, which is a difficult process. And once done, it would be similarly difficult to undo.

One way to compromise is to let each state decide on whether to impose term limits on its own senators and representatives. 23 states had already imposed term limits on their members of Congress when the Supreme Court said this was against the constitution, in 1995.

2. Compromise on term limits: Make a national referendum

Another compromise would be to amend the constitution to allow a national referendum on term limits. This way, we can easily decide to create them or abandon them.

And perhaps we want this on any issue. An amendment could instead say that a referendum should be held on any issue that polls consistently at 75% or higher for at least 12 months. Possibly, we should limit this to political reform issues.

3. Give Congress the power to enact term limits

At very least, a constitutional amendment could give Congress the power to enact term limits. This would provide some forward movement on the issue and make future changes easier. After all, amendments should be simple and a constitutional amendment is difficult to pass. If we want the flexibility to try different approaches, we should amend the constitution to allow it, not specify an exact solution.

What’s the root issue?

Some people argue that term limits will solve the problems of “career politicians”, corruption, and the lack of new ideas. But as I’ve written before, term limits probably won’t help much with those.

On the other hand, corruption could be solved with anti-corruption legislation that the public widely supports. And there are other widely-desired changes the public wants, too, that Congress doesn’t act on.

I say that the real problem is that the public’s approval rate of Congress is low. Currently it’s around 18%. I believe the disapproval comes from the gridlock about important issues, plus the huge amount of negative publicity from members of Congress about each other. They seem to be unable to do much at all, whether it’s nominating a supreme court judge replacement, passing a budget on time or getting the widely desired changes passed. And they love blaming it on the other party.

4. Compromise: Term-limits conditional on disapproval of Congress

So how about making term limits conditional on public approval?

What if we limited members of Congress to two terms if the approval rating of Congress is low? When the approval rating of Congress is low, members of Congress who’ve served before would be barred from running again. That would motivate the whole Congress to work together to solve problems.

Let’s say we do an thorough survey of American voters every April and October. We could say that the average approval rating of Congress must be at least 50% in the October rating of the first year of their term and 70% in the April rating of the second year of their term in order to run again, if this is their second or later term. The first April rating will serve as a benchmark- putting them on notice.

And the approval rating could be more sophisticated. For instance, we could have two ratings:

• Have they made a decent agenda?
• Have they made decent progress?

And instead of approving or disapproving, it might be easier to give them a grade, A, B, C, or D.  We perhaps for the first term in which this is enacted, they could stave off term limits if they get a C+ or better. After that, we could insist on a B.

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