The Solutions Party
The "Advantages" of No Term Limits
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“I should sooner live in a society governed by the first two thousand names in the Boston telephone directory than in a society governed by two thousand career politicians.” (Apologies to William Buckley)
Our Proposal (Reiterated):
- One-term limit for any office federal, state, and local
- Can never run for the same office again
- “One chance to make a difference”
- 2-year waiting period to run for another office
- 2 years after the end of the last office held
- “No more using political office as a reelection springboard”
The Goal:
- Rid the country of reelection-obsessed-power-addicted politicians (“ROPAP’s”)
Part 1: The “Advantages” of No Term Limits
Eliminating reelection by imposing a one-term limit, along with a two-year waiting period after serving before being able to run for another office, will make it much harder, if not impossible, for an elite class of career politicians to exist. It will also make it impossible for special interests and others to keep politicians on a string via the tried-and-true tactic of threatening to withhold support for their coveted reelection.
So naturally one can expect power-addicted politicians and their campaign-supporting allies to make a full-throated defense of why term limits are a bad idea. Some typical arguments that can be anticipated are the following:
1) “Term limits reduce voter choice”
Really? First of all, the same argument could be made regarding the two-term limit of president of the United States—without it, Bill Clinton or George W. Bush may well still be president even today. How many complain that the presidential term limit reduces voter choice?
Second, opening up political office to “new blood” every election will greatly increase voter choice. As it is now, incumbents have an overwhelming probability of being reelected. This probably has less to do with their stellar job performance and more to do with the inherent advantages that incumbents have in their reelection campaigns, due to such things as massive support from their political party, entrenched special interests, and deep-pocketed, quid-pro-quo-seeking donors. Especially in the primaries, incumbents are all too often just shoo-ins; powerful incumbents are rarely seriously challenged, and upsets are even rarer. As the web site Ballotpedia stated, “The system is rigged and voters lack real choice. Our founders would be rolling in their graves to see how entrenched politicians have become. We desperately need change.”
It is therefore clear: a one-term limit means voters will have a far greater choice every election as a host of new candidates vie for open political offices. These candidates will bring new ideas and fresh perspectives for solving problems and achieving progress. Those elected will be entering office with no reelection prospects and therefore can concentrate on more useful endeavors—like getting things done for a change. Imagine that.
2) “Experience Matters”
There is admittedly some validity to the notion that in politics, just as in other professions, experience matters. Certainty career politicians and their special-interest allies would insist that crafting legislation can be a complex undertaking that is best left up to them.
However, this is the real question: what is the lion’s share of the “experience” that career politicians really have? A simple (and partial) list could include:
a) Wasting an inordinate amount of their time in office raising funds and attending rallies for their own reelection and partisan activities, and otherwise operating in constant campaign-mode—on taxpayer money, daily.
b) Using (abusing?) policy-making experience more for the benefit of their client-like special interest groups and their own reelection campaigns, rather than in the interest of the general public and the overall good of the country (look at tax law—we rest our case)
c) Speaking half-truths and ambiguous non-sense, or outright lying on one hand, and not answering tough questions openly, honestly, and directly on the other. Saying anything, no matter how outrageous, in order to get reelected or score political points. Aren’t we all sick and tired of this?
d) Existing in the reality-distorted, too-often-corrupt world of long-term elected office, and too many years out of touch with the realties of the life of everyday Americans.
This is the sort of experience that would be best shown the door.
The experience that really matters does not come from existing for years in the bubble of the reelection-obsessed-power-addicted politicians (“ROPAP”) club. Rather, it will come from the variety of real world experiences that the newly elected will bring to office. As summarized in the variation of the William Buckley quote above, the Solution Party believes government will be more effective when our elected officials represent a genuine cross section of our society and a true mosaic of everyday, real-life experiences. Instead, what we have now is effectively an exclusive rich lawyers’ club that works for special interests and wealthy donors in exchange for reelection support.
3) “Inexperienced politicians would be easy prey for powerful special interests and their armies of experienced lobbyists”
The solution here seems pretty simple: ban all private lobbying. Make all lobbying by petition only, and done in an open, presentation-like format, in which the public would have a chance to listen to and comment on lobbyist claims.
4) Term limits would cause a brain drain, as any knowledge gained on the job would be wasted.
It is true that after years of being in elected office, important knowledge of certain issues can be learned. But no politician is an expert in every topic, no matter how much time in office they have; thus they rely on advisors and staff members, especially in matters in which they lack expertise. In the same manner, newly elected officials can be brought up to speed quickly on the important issues via committees of expert advisors. Previously elected officials with important expertise along with other experts can be brought together into advising committees, and these committees will be made available to newly-elected office holders to offer instruction on the basics of the particular challenges and provide a variety of points of view for potential solutions. This will allow newly elected (one-term) lawmakers to make knowledgeable decisions based on facts, instead of through the distorted lens of political ambition and partisan considerations.
5) Effective long-term bipartisan partnerships would be impossible
Opponents of term limits may point to examples of career politicians crossing the aisle to achieve bipartisan deals as evidence of the benefits of having a long history serving together, and that such partnerships would be impossible if term limits existed.
The question is: how often do bipartisan partnerships between career politicians really occur, and (even more importantly) how often do they lead to effective legislation on high visibility issues such as tax, immigration, and welfare reform, or other important legislation? These days it is evident that bipartisan cooperation on big issues is rare, and getting rarer every year. The political atmosphere is so poison now that politicians who seek to work across the aisle to accomplish major legislation are vilified by their rabidly partisan constitutes, opportunistic political opponents, and zero-principles political commentators. Bare-knuckled obstructionism is more the badge of honor nowadays.
Take the Dream Act, a bipartisan immigration bill that was first proposed in 2001, and subsequently reintroduced in 2009, 2010, 2012, 2017, and 2021. In all cases, despite being formulated and sponsored in a bipartisan manner, it has repeatedly failed to be enacted.
The hard reality now is that practically the only way to achieve anything major in Washington is to strong-arm it into law in a completely monopartisan way—and this can only happen when one party controls both houses of Congress and the White House. Otherwise, it’s Gridlock City, where little substantial is accomplished. This applies to state governments as well, in some cases even more so.
With a one-term limit, elected officials of different parties can concentrate on a true exchange of ideas about real solutions, with no reelection considerations playing a part. Special interests’ ability to hold these elected officials’ feet to the fire will be greatly reduced, as will the influence of zero-principles political commentators.
Part 2: One-term limit: the best medicine for our country’s political ailment.
In the final analysis, we must recognize that power is addictive. According to Nayef Al-Rodhan of Oxford University, “Power activates the very same reward circuitry in the brain and creates an addictive ‘high’ in much the same way as drug addiction. Like addicts, most people in positions of power will seek to maintain the high they get from power, sometimes at all costs. When withheld, power – like any highly addictive agent – produces cravings at the cellular level that generate strong behavioral opposition to giving it up.”
Just as an addiction to drugs or other substances can alter a person’s behavior and personality such that they become almost like an entirely different person, so can an addiction to power. This is why otherwise good people start down the oneway path of corruption, cowardice, dishonesty, and greed (in all senses). As John Boehnor, the former Speaker of the House, said: “…frighteningly, I watched the people get an ounce of power and turned into completely different people than they used to be.“
The addictive nature of political power combined with the possibility of maintaining that addiction through reelection is simply and clearly too tempting for most (maybe all) in elected office to resist. Like addicts at the mercy of drug pushers, career politicians are (at least in significant part) controlled by those who are crucial to helping them maintain their addiction to power. The pushers in this case are the special interests and influential donors that feed the addiction by injecting support for reelection. In exchange, the ROPAP’s craft policies that benefit the pushers. ROPAP’s also get support for their addiction from their political party if they toe the party line, stay in line, and work to advance the interests of the party as a whole. Are those the priorities we want our politicians to have?
Ronald Reagan famously said “Government isn’t the solution. Government is the problem.” In reality, it’s really the ROPAP’s that are the problem. Domestically, they are the source of America’s ever-worsening disfunctionality, destructive internal divisions, declining prosperity, and increasing lack of progress. Internationally, The ROPAP’s are giving America’s enemies the power and propaganda fodder to threaten democracy around the world. While the ROPAP’s selfishly concentrate on their own reelection and scoring petty partisan points with the obsession of hopeless addicts, the worldwide enemies of democracy are actively working to destroy it. China in particular is positioning itself to be dominant in multiple critical fields, including renewable energy, AI, geopolitics, military technology, and much more.
In order to really change things and realize our democracy’s full potential, achieve greater prosperity, and meet the challenges of our adversaries worldwide, we must make it much harder for ROPAP’s to exist in the first place. This can only be done by doling out power to elected officials in firmly limited ways—specifically a one-term limit with no possibility of using elected office as a spring board for immediate election to another office.
Let’s do this.