I've heard the arguments on term limits, the "We need to stop politics from being a career" vs "The voters can vote people out anytime they want" crowd.
I've decided that term limits are necessary and essential to a functioning democratic republic.
The question then becomes "How long?" Many people advocate 2 Senate terms (12 years) or something similar. The President is limited to 8 years. Me, I've decided that these lack a certain amount of intellectual consistency: If it's OK to go for 12 years, why not 14 or 18? Why that line?
So, then, how do you have term limits without someone arbitrarily deciding how long they should be?
Answer: One-and-Done Term Limits.
Put simply, I would advocate a Constitutional Amendment that would say that "No person holding any elected office of the United States, or any of them, or any local subdivision of a state, or the District of Columbia, shall, during the term for which they are elected, be eligible to stand for, or be elected to, any other office. Additionally, no person holding such office may in any way, directly or indirectly, solicit funds from any third party for political purposes"
Basically, this eliminates 2 things:
- Incumbency: A member cannot run for reelection.
- Office Hopping: An elected officeholder cannot run for "higher office"
The limiting principle here, which other term limits proposals lack, is that an elected office holder should be spending their term of office performing the office to which they were elected. The duties of such office do not include campaigning for reelection, campaigning for higher office, or fundraising.
Once the person's term of office expires, they are entirely free to campaign for their previous office, or some other office, if they so choose.
Simple, straightforward, and has a clearly defensible principle on which it rests.
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