Focused Read in 3 minutes
"Five reasons to oppose congressional term limits
“Nothing renders government more unstable than a frequent change of the persons that administer it.” –Roger Sherman, open letter, 1788.
Congressional term limits have long been argued to be an easy mechanism for improving the effectiveness of Congress and government at large.
... advocates suggest term limits would allow members to spend less time dialing for dollars and more time on policymaking, allow them to make unpopular but necessary decisions without fear of retaliation at the ballot box, and avoid the corruptive influence of special interests that many assume is an inevitable result of spending too much time in Washington, D.C.
Plus, proponents reason, new blood in Congress is a good thing.
New members bring fresh ideas and aren’t beholden to the old ways of Washington that have left so many voters frustrated and Congress’ approval rating in shambles. At the very least, term limits would prevent members from being reelected despite serving long past their primes.
In a political environment where bipartisan agreement on any issue of any size is rarely enjoyed, this proposal is incredibly popular.
Seventy-four percent of likely voters are in favor of congressional term limits.
In fact, many members—the very people who would be affected should such a policy be put in place—have shown their desire to limit the number of terms they themselves are eligible to serve by introducing legislation in nearly every congressional session since 1943 that would add a term-limit amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
Even then-candidate Donald Trump argued term limits would effectively help him “drain the swamp” when elected, much to the delight of his anti-establishment base.
The implicit argument is that Washington, with its corrosive practices, corrupts even the most well-intentioned lawmakers.
Because of this, the best—and maybe only—form of inoculation is to limit, constitutionally, the time elected officials can spend in power. At their core, limit advocates contend that elections can’t be trusted to produce incorruptible representatives.
... Despite widespread support, instituting term limits would have numerous negative consequences for Congress.
Limiting the number of terms members can serve would:
1.
Take power away from voters:
Perhaps the most obvious consequence of establishing congressional term limits is that it would severely curtail the choices of voters.
A fundamental principle in our system of government is that voters get to choose their representatives. Voter choices are restricted when a candidate is barred from being on the ballot.
2.
Severely decrease congressional capacity:
Policymaking is a profession in and of itself.
Our system tasks lawmakers with creating solutions to pressing societal problems, often with no simple answers and huge likelihoods for unintended consequences.
Crafting legislative proposals is a learned skill; as in other professions, experience matters.
In fact, as expert analysis has shown with the recently passed Senate tax bill, policy crafted by even the most experienced of lawmakers is likely to have ambiguous provisions and loopholes that undermine the intended effects of the legislation.
The public is not best served if inexperienced members are making policy choices with widespread, lasting effects.
... Term limits would severely hamper the opportunity for these necessary relationships to develop. Strangers in a new environment are in a far worse position to readily trust and rely on their colleagues, particularly from across the aisle.
3.
Limit incentives for gaining policy expertise:
Members who know their time in Congress is limited will face less pressure to develop expertise on specific issues simply because, in most cases, the knowledge accrued won’t be nearly as valuable in a few short years.
We have seen a semblance of this effect after Republicans limited House committee chairs to six years at the helm.
... Thus, term limits would impose a tremendous brain drain on the institution.
Fewer experienced policymakers in Congress results in increased influence of special interests that are ready and willing to fill the issue-specific information voids.
Additionally, a decrease in the number of seasoned lawmakers would result in greater deference to the executive branch and its agencies that administer the laws on a daily basis, given their greater expertise and longer tenure.
4.
Automatically kick out effective lawmakers:
No matter how knowledgeable or effectual a member may be in the arduous tasks of writing and advancing legislation, term limits would ensure that his or her talents will run up against a strict time horizon.
In what other profession do we force the best employees into retirement with no consideration as to their abilities or effectiveness on the job?
Doesn’t it make more sense to capitalize on their skills, talents and experience, rather than forcing them to the sidelines where they will do their constituents, the public and the institution far less good?
Kicking out popular and competent lawmakers simply because their time runs out ultimately results in a bad return on the investment of time spent learning and mastering the ins and outs of policymaking in Congress.
5.
Do little to minimize corruptive behavior or slow the revolving door:
Because term limits have never existed on the federal level, political scientists have studied states’ and foreign governments’ experiences with term limits to project what effects the measure would have on Congress.
These studies regularly find that many of the corruptive, ‘swampy,’ influences advocates contend would be curtailed by instituting term limits are, in fact, exacerbated by their implementation.
Take lobbyist influence, for example.
... term limit literature commonly finds that more novice legislators will look to fill their own informational and policy gaps by an increased reliance on special interests and lobbyists.
... Establishing term limits, however, would likely worsen the revolving door problem between Congress and the private sector given that mandating member exits ensures a predictable and consistently high number of former members available to peddle their influence.
On the surface, the case for term limits is strong given their potential to curtail the forces of corruption that so many assume dictate the ways of Washington.
But, precisely because the creation of successful public policies by even the most experienced of officials is so difficult and uncertain, we should not mandate that our most effective and seasoned lawmakers be forced out of the institution.
Instead, as constituents, we should rely on the most effective mechanism available to remove unresponsive, ineffectual members of Congress: elections.
You can read more here
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September 28, 2018 2:32 P.M.
"Christine Blasey Ford Is a Class Traitor
(By Irin Carmon)
We’ve seen a lot of Brett Kavanaugh’s blinking face in the last few weeks,
but today is the first day we actually saw and heard Christine Blasey Ford, who has dared challenge the carpool dad and Supreme Court nominee.
In the two blurry photos that circulated online before today, her eyes had been guarded behind sunglasses; what she sounds like, we finally are learning during this afternoon’s televised Senate hearing.
I don’t know if it’s intentional, but our clearest image of her face had previously been of Ford as the girl she was when, as she just testified, she was locked in that room with Kavanaugh and his friend Mark Judge: baby-faced, Farrah haircut, mouth slightly ajar.
What came across, listening to Ford testify, was her initial faith that the Republicans choosing Kennedy’s successor would want to hear from her, that she tried to figure out how to get the information to them before it was too late.
Even after her own world failed to keep her safe, she expected to be heard.
Maybe that’s because she comes from Kavanaugh’s world.
... It strikes me that Republicans are scared of Blasey because she is essentially a class traitor.
Two of the accusers whose names we know, Deborah Ramirez and Julie Swetnick, were immediately marked as outsiders by the circle of old school friends and Republican operatives that closed around Brett Kavanaugh from the start.
Deborah was, the Times reported, “the daughter of a telephone company lineman and a medical technician” — nearly a townie, half Puerto Rican, doing her time scrubbing dorm toilets and serving her classmates food while Kavanaugh was, according to his roommate, coating his dorm bathroom in vomit.
Julie Swetnick was worse, by the lights of Kavanaugh’s Georgetown Prep defenders: “Never heard of her. I don’t remember anyone from Prep hanging out with public school girls, especially from Gaithersburg.” Talk about incriminating yourself.
It’s a lie, of course, but a telling one.
Christine Blasey Ford cannot be dismissed as a pretender to privilege, which I suspect is what scares Republicans so much.
But for her decision to come out about Brett Kavanaugh and to remake herself as a California surfing mom, she is the archetypal Republican voter:
A white, wealthy suburban married women with children.
Her parents are Republicans.
Her father plays golf with Brett Kavanaugh’s dad at Burning Tree.
Her parents have been noticeably silent — stonily so, with no letter of support, only the most begrudging words.
It chilled me to read what her father, Ralph Blasey, wrung from himself to offer the Washington Post, in the conditional tense: “I think all of the Blasey family would support her. I think her record stands for itself. Her schooling, her jobs, and so on.”
Then he hung up. A second call yielded this hypothetical: “I think any father would have love for his daughter.”
Women like Ford are the ones who have mostly raced to protect Brett Kavanaugh — not to mention Donald Trump — because admitting that there was something rotten in their culture would implicate them, too.
What makes Ford different, it seems, is that she is ready to tell the truth that even the white woman on the pedestal is ultimately doomed to subordination,
and if she gets in the way of the plan or breaks the code — well, she’s on her own."
You can read more here
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The Democratic Party Website
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→ Fact checking organizations courtesy of the Society of Professional Journalists
in alphabetical order...
→ Some of my favorite, most informative
follows on Twitter include:
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ US Intelligence | Author | Navy Senior Chief | NBC/MSNBC
⭐⭐⭐ Federal Government Operations | Vanity Fair | Newsweek | MSNBC Contributor | Author
⭐⭐⭐⭐ Voting Rights/Voter Suppression | Author | Mother Jones
→ Some of my favorite, highly credible media -- at the moment:
📰📰📰 Mother Jones
📰📰📰📰 The Washington Post
→ Some of my favorite Talking Heads -- at the moment -- and their Twitter handles:
→ Some of my favorite media/panelists -- at the moment -- and their Twitter handles:
✅✅✅✅ Jennifer Rubin Conservative blogger at @ WashingtonPost's Right Turn,MSNBC contributor
✅✅✅ Natasha Bertrand Staff writer @ The Atlantic covering national security & the
intel community. @ NBCNews/@ MSNBC contributor
→ Some of my favorite Democrat Party Leaders to follow on Twitter, not in elected office but proving knowledge & experience are positives & not negatives are:
Former First Lady Michelle Obama
Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton
Former Labor Secretary/Today's DNC Chair Tom Perez
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