U.S. Congressional terms last two years. Presidents serve for four at a time. Senators get elected to six-year terms. Not breaking any news here.
The most famous slogan in a "change" election year is "Throw the bums out." Oh what a dandy it is... 1994 and 2006 are prime examples of that voters heeding that directive.
Well, I'd like to keep the bums a little longer, please. (Please, sir? C'n I hav' s'moh?)
Terms that short are a colossal waste of resources. From a 2000 study:
"While anecdotal evidence has long suggested that candidates and members of Congress spend increasing amounts of time fundraising, Paul Herrnson [political scientist and director of the Center for American Politics and Citizenship at the University of Maryland] directed a study providing the first hard numbers. Based on candidates' answers to survey questions, 55 percent of those running for statewide office, 43 percent of those running for Congress, and even 33 percent of those running for state legislatures spent one-quarter of their campaign time raising money. Nearly one of every five spent as much as half their campaign time fundraising."
I'll take that to be fairly typical of today's realities -- if anything, I'd bet the percentage of time spent raising money is higher now. A law prof at Stanford puts the figure between 30 and 70 percent. Yes, that 70.
The Constitution's framers most certainly did not envision round-the-clock fundraising and 12-hour news cycles predicated on crystal-balling two or three years out. Maybe they foresaw that shorter terms would keep the representatives and executives from getting too cute too often, because an election would always be just around the corner to keep them honest. But Madison and Jefferson would be aghast at the role fundraising plays nowadays. Aghast, I tell you.
So let's give congresspersons three years at a time, Presidents six and Senators nine. Or 4, 6, and 8 respectively. Just let's not have elections every two years, because then every new Congress begins its session in January with news coverage explaining how every vote impacts their re-election chances the following fall. And if you haven't noticed, or cared to notice, talk of who will challenge Obama in 2012 is heating up. I grow nauseous thinking about it... and I'm a political junkie, for Taosakes.
There are obstacles to getting this done.
Roadblock No. 1: Some dude or lady has to introduce the bill. Come down Prediction Lane with me to read the ensuing headlines.
Daily Kos: Imagine 12 years of W
Huffington Post: Where was this in 2008 when we needed it?
New York Times: Throw The Bums In? No, Thank You
Washington Post: Senator X aims to abolish elections; Senator Y already senile as it is
538.com: Three in five voters oppose longer terms, excepting own home state's delegation
MSNBC, Olbermann-Maddow syndicate: Let's do this quick, before the GOP stages a comeback
Fox News: Pelosi seeks lifetime term
Town Hall: Not over my dead Constitution's body
CNN: Tom Cruise arrested for DUI; Jolie adopts Tanzania; Rat flu will kill us all!
I can't imagine that any Congress(wo)man thinks that such a move could enhance their bid for re-election.
Roadblock No. 2: Americans like changing their mind. Or at least the ability to change their mind. Not to be underestimated.
I understand that if terms are extended -- through a constitutional convention or an amendment to the U.S. King James Constitution -- then fund-raising would extend from a two-year cycle to three. And that there would still be chatter about a presidential election five years in the future. But it would be muted for a while. And the frantic, consuming pace of money-grabbing would be temporarily quelled. That alone has to be good thing, so we should give it a try. For the sake of our democracy. Which isn't a democracy, but a republic. I knew that.
I would go in a different direction and remove campaigns. Hear me out before you laugh. Remove the money issue. Candidates gets one 8X11 sheet of paper to say whatever they want in conjunction with being elected. They can print as many 8X11 sheets of paper as they wish or email that pdf to as many as they want.
ReplyDeletePositives:
1. Now anyone can run regardless of funds. 2. They have to think very carefully about what they want to say because there is one first impression and it is no longer a media issue of prepping and priming (the gushing over Obama for the four years prior).
3. New parties can begin to form that different ideas (change?) to legislative bodies.
Negatives (and yes I realize this may seem redundant):
1. Now anyone can run regardless of funds.
2. They have to think very carefully about what they want to say because there is one first impression.
3. New parties can begin to form that different ideas (change?) to legislative bodies.
The real unfortunate issue is that beyond elections, Legislators are self policing. This actually makes a point for term limits as you don't need to fund raise if there is an expiration date. Then you can get back to work. Maybe this is also something that Republicans can key onto: Get some fund raising done now while no one expects you to accomplish anything.
Not that I'm smart enough to think of everything, but I should have seen that term limits are an excellent way to diminish the power of money. Almost surely, officeholders would fund-raise less -- one big push would do it for Senators. One good weekend would do it for my man Barack.
ReplyDelete(By the way, how is it possible that Presidents are term-limited but nobody else? That seems odd to me.)
On the other hand, fund-raising would then be primarily accomplished by the two major parties themselves. I hesitate to grant even more influence to the parties, whose operatives exist only to perpetuate their own power and who are probably more resistant to major reforms than anyone else.
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ReplyDeleteI'm a fan of longer terms, but with a simple additional twist: You can't run for another office until at least a year from the end of your current term. Not that you can never run again - just that while you're IN office, you can't be running for office. Keep your focus on doing your job, not keeping your job. In exchange for not being able to serve consecutive terms, having longer terms gives you more time to actually see a process through to completion and reduce the "there just wasn't time" problem. One wonders, however, if things would still take as long if people in office were actually doing the jobs for which their were elected...
ReplyDeleteI'd love it if I was capable of seeing my typos BEFORE I posted. Like the one in my last sentence of the above re-posted post... >=[
ReplyDeleteAnd clearly, Scarlet, you didn't want to remove ANOTHER comment. (Or do you prefer Pimple?)
ReplyDeleteI consider myself a bit of a political news addict, but this is the first time I've heard the idea of abolishing consecutive terms. I like very much. D'you come up with this idea on your own or hear it from a genius?
IMHO, more than one year would be necessary in between terms. Six maybe. Ten would be fine.
I could get on board with the break in terms also. Force them to finish a job before starting a new one. Radical idea. It would be interesting to put this one in the way- back machine and see what would have happened if BHO had to finish being a Senator then wait for the next cycle to run for President.
ReplyDeleteMy carpool buddy and I like to solve the world's problems on the way to work to get our brains warmed up for the really tough challenges that await us. ;) We also have numerous comprehensive solutions for transportation with only the minor roadblocks (snort) being overnight nationwide infrastructure changes and forcing everyone to trade in their vehicles the next morning. But that's probably more likely than getting Congress to pass legislation that forces them out of office...
ReplyDelete