SOYOUWANNA KNOW ABOUT TERM LIMITS?

It seems that every time Strom Thurmond, South Carolina's 97-year-old senator, is mentioned in the news, people ask themselves two things. First, how can a man who ran for President in 1948, as a member of the States' Rights Party, still be alive, much less serving in Congress? Second, shouldn't there be a law preventing politicians from staying in office indefinitely? We're not even gonna attempt to tackle the first question; it boggles our minds as well. (One word: cryogenics.) Instead we're going to focus on the second, only slightly easier question, regarding the issue of term limits, a major subject of debate in America today.

1. LEARN SOME BACKGROUND ON THE ISSUE

Term limits on executive offices are fairly common. The President is limited to two terms, a precedent set by George Washington but not put into law until after Franklin Roosevelt's marathon of four consecutive terms (he died at the beginning of the fourth) in the '30s and '40s. Thirty-eight states have limits on the number of terms that their governors can serve, usually to two or three four-year terms. While a few of these limits were put into law recently, gubernatorial term limits have been common for over a hundred years.

Most of the debate now is over legislative term limits. Eighteen states limit the number of terms that state legislators may serve. Like with governors, legislators are usually limited to 8 or 12 years. A few states merely limit the number of consecutive terms that a legislator may serve rather than imposing an overall limit. The Supreme Court did not give states the permission to impose term limits on their legislatures until 1998, so all such limits have been put into law in the past few years.

Congressional term limits have had a less successful legal history. The idea of Congressional term limits became very popular in the mid-nineties, and a call for them was part of the Republican Party's 1994 "Contract With America." The Supreme Court declared in 1995 that imposing Congressional term limits would require a Constitutional amendment. Proponents of term limits brought such an amendment before Congress in 1997 but were unable to get the two-thirds vote that they needed. In 1995, some states tried to impose limits on the number of terms that their Congressional Representatives could serve, but this was declared unconstitutional.

Most of the arguments in this article focus on Congressional term limits, but, as you have probably guessed, the arguments for term limits in state legislatures are similar, except on a smaller scale.

2. HEAR SOME ARGUMENTS IN FAVOR OF TERM LIMITS

"Incumbent candidates nearly always win elections. One person is able to occupy the same office indefinitely and the difficulty of defeating them undermines democracy."

The Argument: Incumbents are hard to defeat for a number of reasons: they have their entire term in which to raise money for their next campaign; their office gives them important political connections; and, as those who have seen the Eddie Murphy film The Distinguished Gentleman are aware, name recognition is a huge factor in elections. The more terms a politician serves in the same office, the more each of these factors skews the election. When reelection is virtually inevitable, the democratic process is undermined because ineffective politicians cannot be ousted and qualified potential challengers have little incentive to run against such established figures. Also, when the same people remain in power term after term, new ideas are not brought forward and government remains ideologically stagnant.

The Response: It is no surprise that incumbents usually win elections. After all, they were well liked enough to win the office in the first place. Additionally, people look for experience when choosing a candidate. If people think that new ideas are important, they will vote against the incumbent. However, there is no reason to deny them the option of reelecting someone who is doing a good job. Incumbents win most, although certainly not all, of the time, but that is simply because voters think that they are more qualified.

"Senior politicians who have served for many terms have too much power."

The Argument: Our legislature is designed to be made up of politicians of equal importance, but under the current system lawmakers who have served for a long time are able to dominate. This is true for a number of reasons. First, their experience gives them more political savvy. Second, more time spent in Washington allows them to establish many important connections. Additionally, the near-inevitability of reelection allows them to operate with little concern for the opinions of their constituencies. Most importantly, seniority determines who holds important positions like chairmanships of Congressional subcommittees. The problem with concentrating power in senior politicians is that while such inequality is often good for their constituencies - powerful congressmen can help ensure that a lot of federal funding goes into plans that help their district - it is often detrimental to the country as a whole. People reelect senior politicians because they will do a good job of bringing pork barrel spending to their home state, not necessarily because they agree with their beliefs about policy. The primary function of the Congress is to make major national laws, not allot funding to specific districts, but the lack of term limits gives voters an incentive to reelect senior politicians for specific regional interests rather than because they support what is good for the country as a whole.

The Response: It is not clear that term limits will solve this problem. Subcommittee heads will always have a lot of power, but term limits merely transfer this power to less experienced politicians, rather than limiting it. Furthermore, veteran politicians will continue to exist even with term limits: term limits will simply allow people to hold different offices subsequently rather than the same office for a long time.

3. HEAR SOME ARGUMENTS AGAINST TERM LIMITS

"We should not restrict the ability of the voters to elect whomever they think will be most qualified."

The Argument: Term limits only serve to disallow the reelection of popular politicians. Why prevent proven leaders from seeking to retain their jobs? Additionally, when incumbents run for reelection, the campaign tends to focus on their record so voters are able to make more informed decisions than when faced with a choice of two candidates with whom they are totally unfamiliar. Most importantly, there is no need to make restrictions about who is qualified for an office; instead, voters should make the decision. If people want fresh ideas, then they will elect someone new, but it is undemocratic to deny them the option of voting for a candidate simply because he or she has already served for a few terms.

The Response: While this is a good point in theory, in practice the advantages of being an incumbent prevent elections between longtime office holders and new challengers from giving voters meaningful choices. It is often nearly impossible to raise money for a campaign that challenges someone who has held an office for a long time, so the voters never hear the message of the challenger. Voters usually choose incumbents over their rivals, about whom they usually know next to nothing, but that does not seem like much of a choice. The wishes of the voters would be better served by a totally even election, which would require restricting the ability of politicians to hold the same office indefinitely.

"Experience is important in any job. Term limits would require that our leaders be novices."

The Argument: You wouldn't want to be operated on by a doctor who had never performed surgery before or to be represented by a lawyer who had never been to trial before. The same rule holds for politicians. Being an effective leader involves more than having opinions on the handful of major issues that decide campaigns; Congressional subcommittees, for example, have to handle a lot of specific, technical questions and committee members only learn about the complex issues involved through years of seeing similar problems being dealt with. Term limits would remove all senior members from these committees and destroy the continuity of committee membership from term to term.

The Response: Term limits only prevent people from holding the same office for too long, not from staying in politics generally. People who are elected to important positions will likely have experience in similar areas. Moreover, a politician's beliefs are more important than his or her experience. Difficult technical questions are handled by appointed specialists and most members of Congress have advisors on such issues. Our current system favors experience at the expense of totally fair elections, and by so doing obscures debates over ideological issues.

"The possibility of reelection is what compels politicians to serve the people. If term limits are instituted, there will be little incentive for elected officials to perform well in their last term."

The Argument: Everyone needs an incentive to do his or her job well. For politicians, this incentive is reelection: if campaign promises are not met then politicians can expect to lose their jobs. However, term limits will create a group of elected officials (i.e., those in their final terms of eligibility) for whom there is no incentive to act as promised. Having leaders who are no longer dependent on the approval of the people is problematic and antithetical to democracy.

The Response: Politicians often move from one government job to another, so elected officials who want to remain in government still have an incentive to perform well: they can use their position to establish their credentials for another office. Also, this point has little basis in history. Second term Presidents, for example, have not been any less worthy than they were in their first terms.