Term Limits

1005) and the philosophical public debate that experimental condition limits were demand to reduce the advantages of incumbency. The results of the 1994 election and the Supreme Court finis have thus both reduced the momentum for marches limits on the national level, besides precondition limit laws argon in force in many states, and it is far withal early to say that the national term limits movement is politically dead.

The arguments in favor of term limits begin with the observation that incumbents are rather rarely defeated, the re-election rate in Congress be on the order of 90 percent or 95 percent. The advantages of Congressional incumbents include greater media coverage, taxpayer-paid staff workers (who are non supposed to do campaign work, but whose work unchanging effectively supports their bosses' reelection efforts), campaign contributions by special interests of all sorts, and practice session of the franking privilege to send their constituents material promoting themselves free of mailing costs. Incumbents in state legislators do not have a franking privilege, but they enjoy the new(prenominal) advantages of incumbency. Challengers at both state and congressional levels thus face an un correct playing field.

In the believe of term-limit advocates, the advantages of incumbency have several detrimental effects on the political process as a whole. Instead of existence citizen-legislators who genuinely represent the people of their districts, federal and state legislators proceed career politicians

As renowned earlier, a similar irony has been introduced into the term limits debate by the election of a Republican majority in the family unit of Representatives in the 1994 election. The term limits measure was the only unmatched of the 10 items in the House Republican "Contract" that failed to pass the House, flunk on a 277-204 vote, far short of the two-thirds majority needed for a constitutional amendment ("The month in Congress," 1995, p. 161). Four contrastive term limits bills were introduced and voted on--allowing particles to vote for one with confidence that no one of them would get enough votes to pass ("House rejects term-limits bills," 1995, p. 223).

The House Republicans, at once in the majority, seemed to no longer view term limits with the inspiration they had when they felt condemned to a minority status and hoped that term limits efficacy force the retirement of large numbers of incumbent Democrats (" bourn limits," 1995, p. 1005).

Jacob, P. (1994, December 19). Three-term limit would create a citizen Congress. Insight on the News, 10, pp. 37-38.

Hamilton, A., J. Jay, and J. Madison. (no date). The Federalist. New York: Modern Library.

Indeed, the high overall rate of reelection for incumbents may be misleading; incumbents who know they are unlikely to be reelected often choose to retire rather than face the doubt of a reelection defeat. The average length of service of a member of Congress during the past couple of decades has in fact been little than the 12 years proposed by most term-limit measures.

On the other side of the question, one of the two most fundamental criticisms of term limits offered by its opponents is that it is a restriction of democracy. Why, ask term-limit critics, should the people not be free to vote for the candidate of their choice even if he or she has already served several terms in Congress or in the state legislature? This argument was indirectly the basis for the Supreme Court's ruling against Congression
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