Opinion: Term Limits Bring Sorely-Needed Accountability to Congress
How do we remind our elected officials that they work for us? Not corporations, not self-interest, but the American people. Are term limits part of the answer?
The fundamental trust we, as the American people, ‘have’ in our political and criminal justice systems seems to have eroded away enough that I believe we have reached a tipping point in the country’s history. An apolitical tipping point, to be clear. Neither party is served by our current political hellscape.
When simply agreeing with sensible, cogent arguments (however rare that may be) from the other side of the aisle is met with a rebuke from within the party, the only ones that lose are the American people. You and me. We get the short end of that stick 100 times out of 100. The short-term 'reward' for a member of Congress getting a 'hurrah' from POTUS or avoiding the ire of the other members of the party has proven enough to swing votes, garner favor with the power elite, cause the ‘sudden’ loss of morals and integrity and castrate individualism within politics. What we are left with is a lack of new ideas, a reluctance for innovation, and a concentration on maintaining the status quo.
Assume for a minute that you had an interest in politics and wanted to run for Congress, would you really make that choice given the seemingly unnavigable hypocrisy and inflammatory rhetoric that’s everywhere you look in Washington? Would you have any faith that you could effect changes that would help the American people without the traditional poison pills and backhanded dealings that are all too commonplace in politics today? And lastly, would you really want to deal with all that? Probably not. More than likely, the main reason for wanting to run would be the access to the power, control, and wealth it provides. Now, who WOULD choose to run knowing the hypocrisy, bureaucracy, and deep state interests you will face from day one? I’ll leave you to think about those personality traits.
If I told you that it’s common for members of Congress to leverage insider knowledge in order to buy or sell stocks (probably $GME and $AMC) in advance of news, policy changes, or other developments for their own benefit, would that surprise you?
When you hear a politician speak on air or when you read something their office has published/tweeted, do you accept what you're told at face value or are you left wondering what was omitted or revised?
If you answered the first question 'nope’ and the second one 'left wondering', I am with you.
Using that as a backdrop, I would like to make a case in support of Congressional term limits. While there are none currently written into federal law, a majority of the sitting members of Congress have voiced their support for a proposed Constitutional amendment and many states have adopted referendums on the issue.
In the past, when you have voted in the primaries, how familiar with each candidate were you before checking a box? How often have you voted for a Congressional candidate because you genuinely agree with their clearly explained platform *pause for laughter to die down* and believe they are motivated to improve the lives of the people they represent as opposed to making a 'choice' between 'the lesser of two evils'?
If Congress instituted, as the proposed amendment reads, terms limits of six years for members of the House and twelve years for Senators, would that alone bring any change in governmental process or results? Maybe, maybe not.
Here's what it will do in simple terms: It gives the power of true choice back to the people.
While it is theoretically true that any person that meets the candidate requirements can run for Congress, incumbents win an overwhelming majority of the time they run for re-election. While recent approval ratings for Congress were below 20%, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, over 85% of incumbents have been victorious in each election cycle over the last 40+ years. Furthermore, many of the times where the incumbent did not win were due to retirement. They were never really voted out. This would seem to indicate that the people in their district or state support them and their policies. That's just not accurate, though, is it?
U.S. Senate Reelection Rates, 1964-2018
U.S. House Reelection Rates, 1964-2018
Incumbents are in the driver's seat on the campaign trail from before the starting whistle blows. They spend months and months preparing for and traversing the campaign trail, raising funds, and planning for their next appointment rather than the tasks and duties they swore to uphold as elected officials. Incumbents also have the luxury of knowing the ropes: which hands to kiss and babies to shake (I think I got that backward, Alderaan Ventures Media does not condone either of these theoretical actions), how to raise the requisite tens to hundreds of millions of dollars in campaign funds and how the game is played. They're already owed favors and vice versa and they've already cut their deals with the various interest groups jockeying for position. They are conditioned to put their duty to the public behind their self-interest in continued employment. The average Joe doesn’t stand a chance against that regardless of qualifications or other factors.
By increasing the frequency of the Congressional turnstile, the election 'playing field' becomes more level and may open the door for a much more representative sample of America serving in Congress as fresh faces come in and are not fighting the status quo. No, this will not rid Washington of the swamp overnight (should we move DC to Miami or Houston so the image fits better?), but I believe it is an important step in the right direction. It is possible that the shorter terms served would invite some bad actors that would take advantage of the dynamic and the expiring clock but that may be a fair trade-off if it were more infrequent.* That said, I am not opposed to a Senator that has been termed out running for a House seat or vice versa as I do believe that preserving the right of constituents to continue their chosen representative is vital to free elections.
Can you imagine what a difference it might make to have some trust in our government? I believe instituting term limits would invigorate some great Americans to take the charge and run for office. I’d like to see that happen. In my humble opinion, we have seen very clearly that our government is primarily, maybe solely, concerned with its own agenda before that of the people that it is tasked with ruling over.
While Congressional term limits will not fix our government or inherently create better policy, it is a chance to effectively drain the swamp and have a governmental body that is much more representative of Americans like you and me. If you remove some of the levers of control and force change from the top down, we may have a shot at bringing some accountability and true transparency to government and that sounds pretty good from where I’m sitting.
*There is a lot to unpack in regards to super PACs, lobbyists, and other financial underpinnings but we will leave that part of the conversation for another time; the term limits proposal is by no means a cure-all resolution to the fractured system of government we have but rather one tiny, yet important, step in the right direction.
Our politicians have a difficult task. One that would challenge the resolve of even the most honest, brilliant men and women of America. They are elected to uphold our nation’s laws, act as stewards of information and industry, and craft policies and procedures aimed at improving the livelihood of every citizen. While this is their purported role and aim, this does not seem to mirror reality in the slightest. Perhaps most damaging, though, is the audacity of the members of Congress to act as though they are subject matter experts across dozens of topics, conversations, relationships, and professions simultaneously. It has become quite common for industry experts and academics to have their knowledge, assertions, and research questioned or even dismissed by our nation’s lawmakers during hearings and committee meetings which serve as the precursor to policy and law. Unless, of course, those data points happen to coincide with the point of view of the controlling party in that body of Congress. Furthermore, political discourse has sunk its’ talons into nearly everything. Discussions around current events, socio-economic relationships, religion, sports, education, medicine, and science are only a tiny sample of the topics that have become increasingly politicized, with virtue signaling and empty rhetoric being very much en vogue politically today & throughout time.
Congressional term limits are just a small step in the right direction. The main argument against term limits seems to be based around the idea that existing members of Congress understand how to navigate the labyrinth that is the political landscape of Washington and that ‘stability’ is a net benefit to the complex. This protection of the status quo cannot be a good idea as it is the very thing that perpetuates the cycle of nepotism and nefarious dealmaking that is at the fulcrum of the swamp. If we want to fix the issues our government faces, we cannot deputize politicians as the trusted source for news, context, nuance, and discourse at the expense of the media and the appropriate industry professionals and practices. In deference to the complexity here, let us parse that out a little further. Congressional lobbying laws have had an incalculable effect on legislative efforts and policy. The media is focused on increasing viewership and advertising dollars, not journalistic integrity and thorough research; the more clicks and controversy, the better! Some activist groups are so hyper-focused on their goals that their use of manipulated data and propaganda has destroyed their credibility as experts & academics, or at least you would think it would. Spoiler alert: it sort of hasn’t. (see: climate change)
To be fair, we live in a world where facts seem tenuous. Peace feels fleeting, conflict can be expected. Fear and anxiety, are commonplace by design. To lay society’s ailments at the feet of our politicians and expect to have them cured effectively and in favor of the populous is clearly an unfair standard. If we entrust our politicians to tell us what facts to believe and which policies will benefit us, we are asking for disastrous results. We must fight back with the means at our disposal. The politicians in Washington are altogether too comfortable. The best way to get their attention and catalyze change is to remove them in favor of new faces.
Our elected U.S. Congressional “representatives” are sworn into office with the following Oath of Office:
“I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter: So help me God.”.
We are told that our voices matter and we can influence policy and procedure through ballot referendums, elections, and other civil means, but does the oath above say anything about a duty to listen to their constituents or act in their best interests? What about a duty to tell the truth and deal honestly and fairly? Should the oath need to say those things explicitly for us to expect them from our government? Whether you are or were in support of the actions being proposed or not, just this last election cycle we had politicians talking about the validity of simply ignoring certified election results at the Electoral College level. How much further would Congress need to be pushed to use the same rhetoric to stymie other ballot results not in their favor?
The late Ann Richards, the last Democratic governor to be elected in Texas (1991-1995), said the following in a speech to the DNC as Treasurer of the State of Texas on July 18, 1988,
“We're not going to have the America that we want until we elect leaders who are going to tell the truth - not most days, but every day. Leaders who don't forget what they don't want to remember.”
She is pretty well known for that excerpt, so you may have read it somewhere before, but I think what she said moments later is even more impactful:
“Well, no wonder - no wonder we can't figure it out - because the leadership of this nation is telling us one thing on TV and doing something entirely different.
They tell us - they tell us that they're fighting a war against terrorists. And then we find out that the White House is selling arms to the Ayatollah.
They tell us that they're fighting a war on drugs, and then people come on TV and testify that the C.I.A., D.E.A., and the F.B.I. knew they were flying drugs into America all along. And they're negotiating with a dictator who is shoveling cocaine into this country like crazy. I guess that's their Central American strategy. Two Paychecks to Make Ends Meet.
Now they tell us that employment rates are great and that they're for equal opportunity, but we know it takes two paychecks to make ends meet today when it used to take one, and the opportunity they're so proud of is low-wage, dead-end jobs.”
Does that sound familiar? This isn’t a new problem, we are just being sold the idea that it is. If citizens are mad at each other and they are angry about the things they read in the news and see on TV, the media and politicians are winning. People need to direct that energy towards the source; the fundamental disconnect of accountability of those who we elect to our needs and wants as a nation. What you see on cable news (across the spectrum, there is not a single network that is exempt here) is only what they want you to see and hear in order to craft the narrative and keep you tuned in and riled up. President Trump is 100% about this point: national news coverage is fake news. What he doesn’t say is the subtext that politicians know this and play the media and their constituents like a fiddle by taking advantage of this fact. It’s the classic misdirection magic trick. *watch this hand, while I do something over here with the other one offscreen.*
We need to expect better. We should be able to expect better.
If the stalwarts and political operatives in the swamp pull the strings of government and are allowed that access by the current makeup of folks in Congress, let’s restrict their ability to maintain their power through the super PACs and media. At what point would the partisan antics be brought into balance by even just a small minority faction of Congress that didn’t have the same complacent motives as some of the older guard?
Maybe we have been so desensitized to the ineptitude, bureaucracy, and divisive nature of the ruling classes throughout history that the concept of honest, equitable treatment and government policy seems unattainable. Maybe the challenge in front of the voting American collective is to reframe the current battle from ‘Democrat vs Republican’ to ‘citizens vs government’. This is not a call to action for anything other than awareness of the dynamic. Maybe this is not even a proposal in support of term limits, but rather using that as a tangible step forward in the pursuit of honest and fair representation as individuals, communities, businesses, and constituents.
I am tired of hearing the same resignation to the standard operating procedure from people across the political spectrum and tired of watching friends, family, colleagues and the rest of America fight with one another about whatever Fox, CNN, WH Press Sec, a politician on social media, etc. said about something without pausing to think about why that person or station just made the comment they did and what else may be laying in the minefield around that issue before simply adopting the rhetoric and giving their two cents. The media and our politicians want you to believe everything is black and white, right or wrong, right or left, progressive or conservative; all in an effort to label and divide people and take the fight to the streets. If we all stop taking the bait, they’ll have to figure out a different way to fish the pond.
Knowledge is power, but it is also a very strong currency. Politics is a rich man’s school recess unless we work to the level the playing field.
(This article was originally posted in February 2021 as a two-part series with War Room Media, but that newsletter has been shut down so I wanted to bring this back.)
Let me know what you think in the comments…
You are right on the money as usual. -Great Job