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.
So an increasing number of states have instituted term limits: so many terms in office, and you can’t stand for reelection. Recurrent efforts at instituting these limits at the Federal level have failed, with the exception of the Oval Office. After FDR, presidents have been limited to two terms.
Some of the pundits are very concerned about this movement. The conservative thinker Burke argued that politics is a skill like any other. Just as you would not want an inexperienced surgeon operating on you or your family, so you would not want a novice elected official deciding on far-reaching laws and policy. Every newly elected official will say that the job is far more complicated than they imagine, and that most of the first first term is consumed by simply ‘learning the ropes’. Real mastery of the process can take a decade or more.
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.
Another problem is the nasty partisanship we see. The infighting has reached levels not seen for decades, to the point that effective governance has become a side-show, a secondary concern. Everyone is so busy trying to make the other guy wrong, that no one knows what is right anymore. At a point that the Soviet Union no longer divides the world, at a time that America could be leading the world in fighting oppression and suffering, we are simply fighting with each other instead.
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 chief officer, perhaps the House and the Senate would both have to grant permission.
This has some very positive outcomes. Backbiting is punished, cooperation is rewarded. Politicians have to decide if they want to play hardball and settle for a few quick wins and then leave; or if they wish to really work at governance, at collaboration, and at consensus-building. I suspect the best and the brightest will choose the latter.
And the Good ol’ boys will find quickly find themselves in the political unemployment line. The damage they cause will be very limited.
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.