POWIP Piece of Work In Progress

Term Limits

There has been a lot of talk recently about term limits, particularly in response to the ethics complaints against Rangel and Waters.  They are so entrenched in their voters’ minds that ethics violations, even if proven with evidence, will have a negligible effect on their vote totals.  They might win by 25% instead of 32%.  The argument is simple, without term limits, people like Rangel and Waters will be in office for life.

The problem, however, is that those districts are not going to be won by the opposition party any time soon; it would take felony charges and publicized evidence involving children to flip those seats.  If Rangel was term limited, he would simply run the seat from back stage as a king maker; choosing successor after successor with machine politics.  I much prefer the current system to opening machine politics in every safe district in the country.

As a good capitalist, I pretty consistently think the answer lies in competition; but the rules have been rigged with gerrymandered districts.  I love a good safe Republican seat as much as the next guy, but it’s a deal with the devil.  There are states who have experimented with non-partisan commissions aided by computer software; with some success measured by congressional turnover.

I’m not sure what to do about the Senate, where it seems to take a felony conviction (Stevens) or death (Kennedy) to get some folks removed.  Maybe the higher turnover at the House level would increase the size of the field, helping to identify candidates who could hope to unseat a Harkin or Grassley.  Or maybe our imperfect system really is the best option we have.

Adam Wells

Living life at 84 mph and 7000 feet. All I ask is that you don't block traffic, act like a professional, and don't act all surprised when your actions have consequences. Oh, and don't complain about the refs; trust me, they don't care if your team wins or not.