Repeal term limit law for legislators

[k1dude]

Politicians should be forced to serve two terms; the first one in office and the second one in prison.

Bwahahaha!!! Awesome!

[Uxi]

Do we want citizen legislators? If not and you prefer a pseudo-elected populist aristocracy, by all mean repeal.

If you do want citizen legislators, go to part time with strict and short term limits. No more than 2-3 total terms in any office at any level, max.

The power of an incumbent is huge. The limits need to be shorter. 2 terms total. All we need is the likes of Steinberg and DeLeon to be entrenched for the rest of their lives, gaining more competence at their infringements. Instead of bribing for the next position, they get entrenched in the current position for as long as they want it.

[Glock22Fan]

Lack of term limits leads to people like Feinstein.

[SpunkyJivl]

Hello no. We need to establish term limits on the Federal side.

[Wherryj]

A longer term strategy could include a bill repealing the term limits currently in place .
Term limits encourage corruption and a so what attitude toward constituents.
Before term limits we cold sometimes target a legislator and he would bak off or modify his views . Today knowing he's termed anyway . Heis planning a future with some antigun foundation ( Joyce)

Term limits hurt us by terming out experienced progun legislators who know the ropes and can stop bad legislation through procedure and clever amendments

Further we are much worse off than before term limits were stupidly voted in .

Any disagreements ?
Lets start some action on this

We need term limits. The devil is in the details however. What we need is a limit of no more than zero terms.

[ja308]

Do we want citizen legislators? If not and you prefer a pseudo-elected populist aristocracy, by all mean repeal.

If you do want citizen legislators, go to part time with strict and short term limits. No more than 2-3 total terms in any office at any level, max.

The power of an incumbent is huge. The limits need to be shorter. 2 terms total. All we need is the likes of Steinberg and DeLeon to be entrenched for the rest of their lives, gaining more competence at their infringements. Instead of bribing for the next position, they get entrenched in the current position for as long as they want it.

Are you saying the very wealthy were NOT behind term limits?

Whom do you suppose financed and built support for it ?

[ja308]

I originally posted this to derail possible support for a fed term limit law.


Imagine how nice it would have been for the enemies of freedom to term out a Ron Paul or the late ,demonized Jesse Helms !

I suspect those who retain the support for term limits have not paid attention to the many elected hero's who continually support a limit on govt

[Dark Paladin]

I originally posted this to derail possible support for a fed term limit law.

Imagine how nice it would have been for the enemies of freedom to term out a Ron Paul or the late ,demonized Jesse Helms !

I suspect those who retain the support for term limits have not paid attention to the many elected hero's who continually support a limit on govt

Like I said earlier, term limits are a red herring. It does not actually prevent nor deter unconstitutional actions, and actually grants the duly elected representatives continued immunity from such actions.

Instead, let us concentrate on the factors that actually DOES matter:

1. Sunset clauses on all laws, retroactively applied to everything since the adoption of the Bill of Rights. Politicians come and go (with or without term limits), but the laws they leave behind sans sunset clauses are a legacy that affects EVERYONE. We always read about those silly and outdated laws that are never enforced but still remain on the books. This would remove them from the books, unless a super-majority of 3/4 votes the law back into effect. Laws failing a super-majority can be considered superfluous and/or ineffective, and allowed to die gracefully. People jailed/fined under expired laws remain unaffected.

2. Part-time legislature means an end to career politicians. Representatives receive a pittance for serving in the legislature, but they will have to rely on their day jobs to actually maintain a comfortable lifestyle. Tighten down on political contributions and bribery enforcement, and that will help reduce improprieties. This also forces representatives to remain accessible to their constituency, where they have to face the people who voted them into office on a daily basis.

3. Make representatives personally liable for laws ruled as unconstitutional. This should be treated as serious as treason, because that is what it amounts to. This will force representatives to think twice about proposing unconstitutional legislation when they know it will bite them in the rear. Should a constitutional amendment be voted into affect in which a law becomes invalidated, this will be the ONLY case where the bill's sponsors are exempt from liability. People jailed/fined under invalidated laws gets one (1) chance to appeal their conviction.

With #1 in place, it makes it very easy to get rid of bad laws. Those wanting to keep bad laws run the risk of being spanked by #3 if it goes to court. #2 makes sure they don't have to waste taxpayer money to justify their existence by coming up with superfluous laws.

Please keep in mind that these proposals are not magic pills to fix EVERYTHING that is wrong with the government. But they will go a long way towards righting the ship.

[bwiese]

In conversations with our senior California NRA folks, they *hate* term limits. Justifiably.

We all should, too.

Term limits devalue the 'education-by-pain' gunrights supporters provide to legislators in protests (calls, faxes, emails, tying up of staff time, questions at Q&A in district visits, etc.)

You will note - after analyzing dates - that the significant worsening of CA gun laws directly rose after term limits were imposed (and somewhat also tracked the increasing failures/lack of relevance of CA GOP party.

One notably antigun pre-term-limit legislator told our NRA lobbyist that, "you guys make things so painful I'm not carrying another antigun bill." [He'd still of course vote Yes on an antigun bill ...but killing off the drivers of such bills is almost more important than actual votes later.]

Now, with term limits, a legislator doesn't care as much. He throws anything he thinks will 'stick to the wall': that assemblyman has a short time before he's termed out and has to run for State Senator and has to "show activity" again.

And when he's a State Senator, he has to again "act like he's relevant" and throw more stuff up on the wall to see if it sticks - because after he terms out a state Senate seat he has to either run for statewide office (Sec State, AG, Controller, Gov, what-not) or bounce back down to be a County Supervisor (better retirement benefits than state work) or maybe run for Congress.

[Hoooper]

Current (2012) pay for legislature:
CA (full time legislature) = $95,291/year + $141.86 per day they are in session.
NV (part time legislature) = $146.29/per day they are in session (maximum of 60 days), one session every two years.
NH (part time legislature) = $100/year.

any chance you can link to where you found that?

[Rail]

Term limits have pros and cons for a libertarian argument. What you should be asking for is a part-time legislature.

[ja308]

Part time legislature does not have the financial ,propaganda element that term limits have.

Regardless these two issues will need to be done by volunteers !

Neither will be easy to overcome with the wealthy stateist s who benefit from
influence and the ability to buy termed out legislators.