Category: term limits

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initiative, referendum, and recall term limits

Catnip for Arrogant Politicians

Alan Clark, Arkansas, term limits,

Arkansas Sen. Alan Clark pretends that his bill, Senate Joint Resolution 15, would toughen the term limits that apply to him.

Clark’s masterpiece, which sailed through the Senate 27–3 on Tuesday, most certainly does not. While it purports to toughen term limits from 16 years to 12 years, read the fine print.*

First, these legislators are grandfathering themselves in at 16 years. 

Second, Clark’s amendment removes the current lifetime limit, allowing politicians to return to office after just four years out.

For another 12 years.

And then perhaps an additional dozen years.**

What is going on here, you ask?

Well, in 2014, Arkansas legislators had tricked voters, referring a dishonestly worded measure onto the ballot. It claimed to establish term limits and ban gifts from lobbyists to legislators. The amendment accomplished neither; lobbyists continue to ply legislators with food and drink while existing term limits were weakened.

Last year, a citizens group turned in 135,000 voter signatures to place the strict limits citizens had originally enacted (1992) onto the ballot. But a lobbyist lawsuit with technical signature challenges won a 4-3 state supreme court decision blocking the initiative. 

Nonetheless, it was too late to remove the measure from the ballot. Votes were cast, just not counted. Fortunately, the Arkansas Times’ Max Brantley released vote totals in three large counties showing that the citizen-sponsored term limits had won big.

Which scared Arkansas’ prima-donna careerists, Clark especially, to create the current exercise in representing themselves, not the citizens of Arkansas.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

* Clark’s constitutional amendment originally contained a provision taking term limits for state legislators out of voters’ hands by banning use of the initiative process to propose changes. Thereafter, only legislators could address the length of their own careers. That bit of self-interested boss-rule was jettisoned, apparently, as too obviously and arrogantly anti-voter.

** Those additional years — which, depending upon longevity, could extend past three decades — come with additional pension benefits, too.

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Alan Clark, Arkansas, term limits,

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national politics & policies Popular term limits U.S. Constitution

The Court-Packers

Supreme Court, NPC, packing the court, FDR, law, justice, constitution

“What if there were five justices selected by Democrats,” presidential candidate Beto O’Rourke explored at an Iowa campaign stop, “five justices selected by Republicans, and those ten then pick five more justices independent of those who picked the first ten?”

Beto, meet FDR.

President Franklin Delano Roosevelt tried something similar with the Judicial Procedures Reform Bill of 1937, which would have added six new justices to the nine-justice U.S. Supreme Court. It failed in the Senate, even though FDR’s Democratic Party controlled the chamber.

This “court packing” gambit may have been the most unpopular action of FDR’s whopping three-plus terms. 

Despite the obvious self-interested power grab, “Sens. Kamala Harris, Elizabeth Warren and Kirsten Gillibrand . . . would not rule out expanding the Supreme Court if elected president,” Politico reported.

“It’s not just about expansion, it’s about depoliticizing the Supreme Court,” Sen. Warren explained . . . with a straight face. Yet Beto’s suggested reform would officially turn the nation’s highest court into a partisan, two-party political institution.

To the good, Democrats are also bantering about term limits for the nation’s High Court. Trouble is, term limits require a constitutional amendment, meaning a two-thirds vote of both chambers of Congress as well as 38-state ratification. 

Court packing, on the other hand, only requires simple majorities of both houses and the presidency. Which Democrats threaten in 2020.

“You need to gain power,” Washington Examiner columnist Philip Wegmann reminds, “before you can abuse it.”

So the abuse, for now, is merely promising.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob. 

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Supreme Court, NPC, packing the court, FDR, law, justice, constitution

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Democratic-Republican Day

Thomas Jefferson, term limits, democracy, Democratic-Republican,

“We live in a republic,” I often hear, “not a democracy!”

Sometimes it seems like we live in neither.

Today is the first National Term Limits Day. Its proponents aim to style February 27th as an annual event. 

It’s a new thing. 

But term limits themselves are not new.

For instance, 68 years ago today, the 22nd Amendment was ratified, limiting the president to two lifetime terms.

Long, long before that, ancient Athens — often called a democracy — term-limited elected offices, as was done in Rome — which was called a republic.*

The idea being that, if the people are to rule, in even a loose sense, those who hold office must not be permanently perched, able to acquire increasing amounts of power and privilege.

To accomplish this, elections serve as ways to rotate people into and out of power. Unlike in hereditary monarchy or military rule, elections of “rulers” to positions of power require the establishment of terms in office, a set period of time that limits those in power by requiring elections to renew their service for another term, or peaceably to oust them.

A term limit takes the next step, disallowing an individual from staying in office for life by limiting the number of terms legally available.

Thomas Jefferson was upset that the new Constitution, devised in convention in 1787, did not have provisions ensuring “rotation in office,” via term limits. He was what was then called a “democratic republican.”**

Whether you call it “democracy” or “republic,” or something else, citizens being in charge of government is something we could use more of. The United States has term limits for the presidency, for 15 state legislatures, for elected officials in eight of the ten largest cities. We need them for Congress most of all.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

* O’Keefe, Eric (2008), “Term Limits,” in Ronald Hamowy, The Encyclopedia of Libertarianism, Thousand Oaks: SAGE; Cato Institute. pp. 504–06. “Political scientist Mark Petracca has outlined the importance of rotation in the ancient Republics of Athens, Rome, Venice, and Florence.”

** Alexander Hamilton, infamously, leaned the other direction: in his first speech at that first constitutional convention he argued to elect a national king to serve for life. He was a nationalist, in those days called a “Federalist.”

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Thomas Jefferson, term limits, democracy, Democratic-Republican,

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Accountability general freedom national politics & policies term limits

The Soul of Citizen Government

President's Day, George Wahington, term limits, power

Today’s federal holiday represents a truly spectacular feat of modern public administration: actual downsizing.

By our federal government, no less.

Where once there were two federal holidays, Washington’s Birthday and Lincoln’s Birthday, now there is just one: Presidents’ Day.

There is no equal in public sector simplicity, frugality, efficiency. Stand in awe, fair citizens.*

In that spirit of brevity (the soul of citizen government?) I’ll cut out the middle-man, moi, and let presidents speak to a classic example of less being more, term limits.

“If our American society or the United States Government are overthrown,” Abraham Lincoln wrote, “it will come from the voracious desire for office, this wriggle to live without toil, work, or labor — from which I am not free myself.”

“We want to see new voices and new ideas emerge,” explained President Barack Obama. “That’s part of the reason why I think that term limits are a really useful thing,”

‘Actions speak louder than words’ could have been George Washington’s motto. His greatness may spring more from giving up power than from wielding it. He could have been president for life, but he stepped down after two terms, eight years.

In his second term, President Thomas Jefferson expressed hope that his retirement would help establish that two-term tradition for presidents, ultimately leading to a constitutional requirement.**

Success! This February 27th marks the 68th anniversary of the 1951 ratification of the 22nd Amendment: presidential term limits. 

And having declared the 27th to be Term Limits Day, U.S. Term Limits and supporters are rallying all around the country next Wednesday.

Join in celebrating term limits and help push for limits on Congress.

It’s Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

* That’s what it seems like, anyway. The true story? Much more complicated. Officially, the U.S. Government still considers Presidents’ Day to be Washington’s Birthday, believe it or not.

** Jefferson had harshly critiqued the new Constitution for its “abandonment in every instance of the necessity of rotation in office, and most particularly in the case of the President.”

Contact U.S. Term Limits:
termlimitsday@termlimits.com

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What’s Love Got to Do With It?

term limits, democracy, representative, congressman, Senate, House of Representatives

“One of the great myths in official Washington,” writes pollster and pundit Scott Rasmussen at Ballotpedia.org, “is that voters hate Congress but love their own representative.”

Working for term limits, boy have I heard this assertion a lot.

Oh, voters do hate Congress; this we know. Less than one in eight Americans approve of the job being done (or not) by Congress, according to a brand new The Economist/YouGov poll. 

The remaining question, however, is whether we really like our own congressperson. The correct answer appears to be: Not so much.

A recent ScottRasmussen.com national survey, conducted Feb. 1-2, 2019, found that less than one in four voters, only 23 percent, “actually think their own representative is the best person for the job.” A far larger percentage, 38 percent, believe “others in the District are more qualified.” 

It is certainly possible, of course, that folks could think there is someone better than their sitting congressperson and, nonetheless, still love their Rep.

Though, doesn’t “love” seem like way too strong a word?

The notion that we are consumed with amorous urges toward our own federal representative is evidenced only by the high re-election rate for incumbent congressmen. But those rates are more likely the result of the powerful advantages of incumbency.

Not gleeful adoration of “our” career politicians.

There is one way to test our level of devotion: Let us vote on term limits and see what happens.

It would lead to a new question: Where did our love go?

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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term limits, democracy, representative, congressman, Senate, House of Representatives

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incumbents political challengers term limits

Old Dominions

Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax

A photo, found on Virginia Governor Ralph Northam’s 1984 medical school yearbook page, went viral. It was of a person in black-face next to another in a Ku Klux Klan sheet. In almost no time at all, Democrats and others quickly demanded that the governor resign.

Why the speed? 

The already-started presidential campaign? 

Or the likelihood that Democrats would experience no disadvantage should their governor step down?

Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax, an up-and-comer in the Democratic Party, would take Northam’s place. And under Virginia’s gubernatorial term limits, Fairfax could run again for a full term after finishing the rest of this current term. 

With Virginia’s one-term limit, it would allow a rare option to run as an incumbent.

There’s a speed bump, though. Not necessarily the sexual assault allegation lodged against Fairfax, which he denies . . . and about which we know little. What’s certain? Fairfax is positioned far to the left of Northam — in a state that is still more purple than blue. 

A bitter feud with Laborers’ International Union of North America illustrates the problem. Mr. Fairfax has long opposed two pipelines that the union desperately desires. The union — a donor of $600,000 to Democrats in 2017 — demanded that candidate Northam remove Fairfax’s name and picture from mailers to union households. 

Northam complied. 

And got hit by charges of racism.

You see, Fairfax is black. 

Playing down the dis, Fairfax called it a “mistake”; others chose “mindboggling,” a “slap in the face,” and a signal that blacks “are expendable.”

Northam still won . . . with 87 percent support from black voters.

Should Northam finish his term, Lt. Gov. Fairfax would remain well positioned, but the race would be wide open. If Fairfax becomes governor, however, no Democrat will challenge him for fear of splitting the party.

Yet, come 2021, Fairfax is too far left to defeat a decent Republican . . . should one appear.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax

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