Me thinks Mr. Welch doesn’t want to wait around too long for another seat to open up in Southeast PA. Take your pick Mr. Welch…people will inevitably retire.

83% of people support term limits, but 50% of them won’t vote against an incumbent.

Term limits haven’t helped California.

you want to run for office and then be asked to leave in 2 or 4 years? weird. spending quite of bit of money to try and do that. maybe focus on helping this region prosper and be represented well in Washington would be better than saying I’d like a good run, then I’ll quit and not do it.

Dr. H. Abbie Erler of the Heritage Foundation lays out a terrific argument against term limitations, which tend to have the reverse effect of what most t.l. advocates intend:

http://www.heritage.org/Research/Thought/sr0048.cfm

Also, don’t forget about Ronald Reagan’s opposition to the 22nd Amendment (presidential term limits, created by FDR’s opponents who couldn’t beat him during life and could only defeat him after his death). Reagan felt term limits violated the right of the people to vote for whoever they wanted, whenever they wanted to do so.

Ditto to what Adam wrote.
One of the biggest problems in California is leadership, with legislators who have just begun to understand how the process works being “termed out” the next year. This only yields an even MORE ineffective government. More responsible? Maybe. More ignorant? Ask the increasingly desperate people of California.

Let’s pretend for a second I find a great, effective, honest candidate to vote for and he/she wins. Is it reasonable to kick that person out after a couple terms if they’re doing the job you sent them to do?

Let’s promote good governance through the regular election cycle, not through musical chairs.

I agree with the blog. We are talking 12 years. If you can’t be an effective politician within a couple of years, you should not be there.

For those interested, it looks like Welch also did a video release of this Op-ed.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-fqcwWOwRC4

Career politicians, whose self perpetuation in office becomes their primary goal, are a significant part of what has become an unhealthily partisan atmosphere and has resulted in a failure to accomplish much of anything of a reform nature.

This country needs to return to the concept of citizen elected officials who serve for a limited period of time and then resume non-governmental careers. We can argue about the length of the term limits and whether we allow “up or out” candidacies for those who have served their limits; but it’s the only institutional reform that is going to change the system significantly.

It’s utopian to argue theoretical freedom to vote for whom you want; but reality and pragmatism must prevail. And it is mere fantasy to believe that the voters will weed out undeserving, unproductive office holders at election time; just look at what we have now.

I say lets get more citizens involved via reasonable term limits and it will serve us far better than the current inherently diseased system.

Welch diagnoses the problem as the growth of government, caused by the excessive influence of entrenched interests. So what is his solution? Lobbying reform, campaign finance reform, institutional reform? No, that would go against GOP dogma.

Instead he proposes the most ineffectual of all solutions, term limits. Nevermind that it is anti-democratic, why in the world would you expect this solution to produce the effect you want, namely a government of mythical ‘citizen legislators’ supposedly untainted by powerful Washington interest groups?

Term limits would create a “churn,” alright: it would exacerbate the existing ‘revolving door’ dynamic, such that legislators become lobbyists and visa versa. Legislators will become even more susceptible to corporate influence, knowing that a lobbyist’s high-paid sinecure awaits them if they ‘play along.’ Congress really would become nothing more than a “farm league for K street.”

When and if Mr. Welch is willing to endorse real reform, like citizen-funded elections, a ban on former legislators lobbying their colleagues, or filibuster reform, I’ll listen. Until that point, proposing naive non-solutions to real problems gets you no credit.

We already have a means of term limits.

It’s called the Ballot Box. If you wanna throw the bums out, vote for someone else and go out and convince your neighbors to do the same. It’s always some loser who can’t win elected office who calls for them.

Yea, Lee, why no get citizen’s better involved in KNOWING their representatives, or infact knowing the process of government. Or how about we remind the legislators THEIR jobs, and what they own to those they represent. This idea that terms limits fixes that is just faulty.

Hold the phone — Steve wants to get elected, amend the Constitution to set Congressional term limits, then grandfather himself in for life! Hilarious, I bet every 30 year old multi-millionaire would love to do the same thing!

Oh yeah, and if he was paying attention to politics back in the 90′s he’d recall that the 12-year limit was already tried. It both failed to satisfy proponents of term limits and didn’t get the 2/3′s needed to pass an amendment. Try again Steve, and instead of watching Shawshank you might try reading a book.

phensley, I agree with the reforms you proposed as well; so I guess, by your own words, that means you’re ready to listen to term limits now.

robin, how better to get citizens to know what you described than to get more of them serving in office? I didn’t say that term limits would be a panacea; there is no such thing. But it would diminish the career politicians among us. Do you not agree that would be a good thing?

Actually, the root cause isn’t term limits – it’s gerrymandering. The only reason incumbents are able to stay in power so long is because the districts are drawn that way.

Good effort, but you fell short.

Lee Levan-

There aren’t any career politicians. They have to run for their respective seats every two or 6 years, and any election can see an upset Just ask Martha Coakley how it feels to lose to a guy who’s promising to kill jobs, but outcampaigned her in one of the bluest states in the country. You’re talking about taking away the rights of citizens to elect the people they feel should represent them in their states/districts. It’s undemocratic and is another encroachment on our libety to go with term limits. If you really want to affect change, help elect people who will go to congress and find a way to ovberturn the terrible Supreme Court decision that allows foreign-owned companies to be able to dump unlimited amounts of cash into elections.

Ed, I agree with overturning the Citizens United decision and working for candidates. But neither of those will be as effective as term limits in causing fresh turnover among our elected officals. It’s time for radical change of the system.

And if you believe that term limits will take away the right of citizens to elect whomever they want more than the existing system does, then you simply are ignoring the facts. Look at the rate of turnover now. The “right” that you defend is illusory where well over 90% of those members of Congress who choose to stand for re-election are elected every time. You don’t believe that many of them deserve re-election do you?

Just because term limits happens to be generally a Republican idea doesn’t necesarily mean it’s a bad one.

Lee Levan-That 90% incumbancy advantage is, year after year, decade after decade, what the voters have decided. No one twisted anyone’s arms to vote those incumbants in. Do I like the ones that win all the time? No. But some of them I do, including my own congresswoman. Why would you want to take her right to run as a citizen for office or my right to vote for her. Apparently she and the other incumbants are doing something right by being reelected. This is a voter problem, not an incumbancy problem. No matter how you slice it, it’s the voters, and democracy and the use of the right to use the vote as the citizens see fit, that sees incumbants win. That’s not ignoring any facts. That’s believing that democracy at the ballot box, with it’s warts and all, is doing what the electorate wants them to do. Again, if you want to see other people win, then be better at convincing your neighbors and others in the district/state you reside.

Perhaps it is because I am from Upper Darby, where even township council appears to be appointment for life, and then they ultimately pass their post on to their kids; so at first I thought: Maybe Welch is on to something. But if he thinks the term limits would limit lobbying, he is out of his tree. Not mentioning the new decision by the supreme courts to allow unlimited campaign adds by corporations (yes, even foreign ones); doesn’t bode well for his credibility. So lets see, Steve is suggesting lofty ideas that wouldn’t work, that also probably won’t ever happen. Sounds like he would fit right in any legislative body. I still like how his house is on two legislative districts, how much did he have to tip his realtor for that?
I can, however, see the people with Lemon zinger bags stapled to your heads shouting “Term limits!”; so way to shepherd the sheep!

Frankly, the GOP keeps running on this idea of term limits because they don’t offer up much else as a party. They have no meaningful ideas on health care. They have no meaningful ideas on getting the economy out of it’s slump (but they sure as hell knew how to get us into a recession). They call for spending cuts on the campaign trail but forget them once in office. They make all kinds of statements about getting government out of our lives and then vote to insert it into our personal lives. Look back to 1994 when they took out their Contract on America, which called for term limits, they voted against it. Sorry, but the only reason why they call for term limits is as a campaign promise that they immediately forget once they are in office.

I agree with term limits of 4 terms for State Sens, 8 terms for State Reps, I think 16 yrs gives folks more than enough time to find out where the bathroom is, but not long enough to become too entrenched. This would avoid the problems we have in California where the term limits are too short and the bureaucrats run the institution.

And what would term limits do for pensions?

“And what would term limits do for pensions?”

Reduce them, obviously, providing less of an incentive to try to make a career out of politics.

The mess we are in today is due to complacency in our congress.We need new blood and the only way we will get it is with term limits. When you have 4 times as many lobbyists then congressional people there is something amiss. Who is lobbying for the people? In future elections have the candidate sign a pledge that he or she will vote for term limits. It could work as I understand that 70% of the voters want term limits.
As thge old story goes “a new broom sweeps clean”.

Isn’t America great. Here we are in one of the worst economic times of our generation-long-time politicians being slapped on the hand for violating the tax laws of our country as they lead us-ancient politicians living off of a government payroll under the guise of “public service” for 20 or 30 years, and being honored as outstanding citizen servants when they pass away-politicians more interested in exiting a session of congress to go home and raise money for their next campaign rather than stay and work out solutions to some of today’s biggest issues for this country. Term Limits are necessary in order to keep the freshest ideas flowing into Washington to help find new approaches to today’s real issues. I am infuriated that we are supposed to bow down in honor of a deceased politician who by the way, was in office for 30 years! Give me a frickin break. All of the old sayings apply-you can’t teach an old dog new tricks, etc. It’s not bad enough to have an inexperienced man in the office of president, and who with any brains thought that it would play out any other way than it has to date?
To have a group of outdated, unconnected, self-serving people tell us that they know what is best for us as citizens of the USA is crap. We go through the same things year after year and stand by and listen to the BS that takes place in Washington-same results year after year. As long as these people take caqre of themselves and there’s something in it for them, that’s all they’ll ever have a concern for. Limit the time that these “clowns” can live “off of the dole” so that the alliances they make with special interest groups and companies become ineffective and therefore diminish the influence that they pedal all over Washington-rendering “campaign contributions” less effective as well. I’ll help to push for term limits in any way I can……..I’m sick and tired of old, corrupt, self-serving, windbags living off of my dime and doing as little in my interest as they can to stay where they are. NEW BLOOD IS ALWAYS GOOD!