What Mitch fears sounds good to me

[Zorba]

Key word, "old" guard.

I'd be for age limits. No fricking way some 80-year-old should be in government. I'd make the limit 70--past that at the day you would take office, go play golf. "but they were elected!" Sure, they had all the money and power. Money wins elections, and that power can be used to squash careers of anyone daring to run against them.

Old, long serving representatives that are still forced to serve their district, can be very good for their district. The real problem are safe districts and you start to fix that with open, top two, ranked choice primaries. And banning gerrymandering and vastly increasing the size of the house.

I would much rather have Pelosi be my rep that random 30 year old with no experience and no power.

 

[Stokely]

Maybe its watching Feinstein and then Biden hold on too long.

You do have a point, there's people like Gaetz and Vance in Congress, and "Talented Mr. Ripley" Santos somehow made it in. That said, there's something in common with these examples....

 

[SteveGrabowski]

I can see it now... In the year 2300 A.D. there could be another SteveGrabowski lamenting the imbalances resulting from court packing and state creating that today's SteveGrabowski instigated.

Using the same unfair or unethical tactics used by your opponents to defeat them only proves to them (and to you) that those tactics work - and that both sides acknowledge that using them is accepted as part of the political process (so making them neither unfair or unethical). It is a hollow victory if in order to beat them you must join them. Or so it seems to me...

Hollow victory is the best you can do in capitalist America

 

[BoomerD]

Oof term limits. Absolutely dreadful thinking. Increasing lame ducks makes sense to you?

Term limits also makes it so there is no old guard that actually knows how to get anything done, except staffers. Our government affairs guy has told me how term limits just make the staffers very powerful because the reps turn over so much they don't know what they are doing. Term limits are a feel good band-aid. The much better solution is top two, rank choice open primaries.

If term limits are legal ( and constitutional) for the presidency, it should be legal and constitutional for congress critters. 2 six year terms for senators, no more than 4 two year terms for representatives.

Key word, "old" guard.

I'd be for age limits. No fricking way some 80-year-old should be in government. I'd make the limit 70--past that at the day you would take office, go play golf. "but they were elected!" Sure, they had all the money and power. Money wins elections, and that power can be used to squash careers of anyone daring to run against them.

Set the maximum age that any senator, representative, president or vice president can be elected to office at 65, and no one can remain in office past 70 years old.

 

[brycejones]

If term limits are legal ( and constitutional) for the presidency, it should be legal and constitutional for congress critters. 2 six year terms for senators, no more than 4 two year terms for representatives.

Then you will really have the lobbyists and professional staff running things. We already know this from the state governments that have adopted term limits, especially short ones like you are proposing. It’s a failed idea.

 

[Lost_in_the_HTTP]

Outlaw the lobbyists.

Make the staff people Civil Service, subject to those regulations and randomly shuffle them among the offices each term.

 

[BoomerD]

Outlaw the lobbyists.

Make the staff people Civil Service, subject to those regulations and randomly shuffle them among the offices each term.

Hell yes. Outlaw lobbyists, make it illegal for congress critters to become lobbyists or “consultants” in any capacity.
Professional staff already run most day-to-day operations anyway…

 

[pmv]

I can see it now... In the year 2300 A.D. there could be another SteveGrabowski lamenting the imbalances resulting from court packing and state creating that today's SteveGrabowski instigated.

Using the same unfair or unethical tactics used by your opponents to defeat them only proves to them (and to you) that those tactics work - and that both sides acknowledge that using them is accepted as part of the political process (so making them neither unfair or unethical). It is a hollow victory if in order to beat them you must join them. Or so it seems to me...

My mistake... I meant to say limited terms for Supreme Court justices - not "term limits".

FWIW I am content to have spurred a little debate about this.

Surely it's true though that to 'beat them you must join them', as you can't change or fix a system without first gaining some power in it? Court packing, for example, would be a prerequisite of any changes to the rules governing the court, as otherwise it would just block them.

I mean, the US didn't 'reform' absolute monarchy by following the rules of the existing system, did it?

 

[dank69]

Outlaw the lobbyists.

Make the staff people Civil Service, subject to those regulations and randomly shuffle them among the offices each term.

Outlaw the lobbyists, lol. How about voters just punish the party that keeps making it easier and easier to inject money into the system legally? That's a hell of a lot easier than enforcing bans on lobbying.

Shuffle the staffers? Combined with term limits now nobody knows how anything works. Great plan.

 

[Zorba]

If term limits are legal ( and constitutional) for the presidency, it should be legal and constitutional for congress critters. 2 six year terms for senators, no more than 4 two year terms for representatives.



Set the maximum age that any senator, representative, president or vice president can be elected to office at 65, and no one can remain in office past 70 years old.

For the record, it's legal and constitutional for the president because of a constitutional amendment. Short term limits make the lobbiest and professional staff very powerful.

 

[hal2kilo]

Hell yes. Outlaw lobbyists, make it illegal for congress critters to become lobbyists or “consultants” in any capacity.
Professional staff already run most day-to-day operations anyway…

That damn constitution.

 

[ivwshane]

Lobbying is also a constitutional right so you aren’t getting rid of lobbyist.

However there is still plenty of things that can be done.

The reason we have lobbyists writing bills is because newt Gingrich cut down the amount of staffers reps can have. Raise the number of support staff and hopefully that will fix that aspect of it.

As for lobbying; it’s my personal opinion that all lobbying interactions should be only allowed at approved locations and all interactions require being recorded using both video and audio.

I think it should also be illegal for representatives to own/sell any stocks that they didn’t already own before being elected and the fbi should be allowed to monitor friends and family for insider trading.

Along with that, we need public funding of campaigns with no outside money allowed.

 

[dullard]

Set the maximum age that any senator, representative, president or vice president can be elected to office at 65, and no one can remain in office past 70 years old.

SS full retirement age + 5. That way it remains flexible as the decades go by.

I once said that I would never vote for someone who is of full retirement age. Not that being that old makes you a bad politician or bad decision maker. But is more what their focus is likely to be. Most of their siblings / peers / friends / elders that inspired them are thus also likely to be retired. That means their political focus is far too often on milking the system rather than on the generations who still have to work to support that system.