Sinfest

[Agamemnon]

That may be true. I don't know much about him, but in my opinion, Byrd is representative of everything that's wrong with Washington.

[Monkey Mcdermott]

I'd settle for age limits. My grandmother is intimidated by laptop computers and she's nowhere near as old and out of date as half the people we have representing us and making rules about technology in congress. Or both, 3 terms or 65, whichever comes first.

[Major Tom]

why 65?


{edit}
it seems that a lot of the power to accomplish things that are on your (the congressman's) agenda, like committee chairs, for instance, are handed out on the basis of seniority.

even if your agenda has nothing to do with the committee you chair, generally you can use your own influence to beg, extort or steal the votes to get what you need done, done.



so, seniority being the case and, in your scenario, 3 terms or 65 being the limiter...that really means that the majority of voters will not end up supporting anyone who is unable to serve 3 full terms from the outset, since seniority is the way to be certain that the things "your man" wants done, get done.

in essence, a "65 or less" limit would cause the political machine to eschew anyone looking for a house seat who was 61 or older (59, if you mean to say that a Rep would have to actively resign his seat at 65 even in the midst of an elected term) and limit the upper age of first term senators to 53 (or 47, same reasoning).


i don't see any justification for age discrimination to be institutionalized.

[kame]

It really is the voters' responsibility to put a politician to the curb when they get too crazy/senile.
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[mouse]

true. because there are some older people who are really sharp, and who bring tremendous value in terms of their experience.

california put term limits on legislators, and it really hasn't worked out well. for one thing, there's not much in the way of institutional memory any more, so there are real problems with things like getting the budget done. no one has much experience in doing it, they don't know how it was done before, and they just get lost in the process.

the other thing is, it seems to make for a more radical group (in both directions). they know they will only be there a short time, so they are happy to run on some one particular thing they think is important, and they are unwilling to compromise, because they know they won't be around in the future to need the other guy's help.

what we really need is some way to even out the election process, so incumbents don't have such a huge advantage. too many people just keep voting for the same person, because the name is familiar, and things haven't been noticably horrid, so he must be doing alright....

hey - i wonder if we could force candidates to run anonymously? obviously, they would have to be assigned some identifier (candidate a, or 2005-50-023 or something). you would get no pictures, no sound bites (except maybe from spokespeople) - just what the candidate's platform was, with a statement of values, and experience somewhere in the middle, so people would have to read through it all to find out if this was the same person who had been in office (the labels would change with each election).

and spending limits. or at least equal funding. so all donations to candidates have to go into one big pool, and it gets divided equally between them all.

ok, it's weird, but think about it a little.
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[dazedb42]

If I was you lot I wouldnt worry about old age and senility in your politicians... Reagan didn't stuff up as much as some. The one stand out point of your version of democracy that really stinks is the lobby groups. I am still trying to work out why it is called lobbying and not bribery.

Maybe compulsory voting is the way to go? At least then you have a decent sized voting pool to share the load of electing your politicians rather than minority sections being able to manipulate the outcome. I don't know what sort of turn outs you get at elections but it would be interesting to see a breakdown of the demographics of voters. I think here in Aus if we didn't have compulsary voting we would be much worse off. Apathy would stop middle of the road voters from voting whilst fringe loony groups would be able to muster the troops to get elected.

Oh isnt that what is happening now?

[Usagi Miyamoto]

the
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[Major Tom]

we'd need two more branches of government to do the work of these two while they're all tied up in court.

[Sam]

They really just need to find a way to keep people from being able to bundle random shit to bills.

Literally, they have dudes scribbling pork and nonce onto every single bill that goes through congress, up until minutes within the vote. You simply about cannot get a single appropriations bill through without a whole galley of earmarked monetary finery welded to necessary legislation.

[BoySetsFire]

as a preface, let me say that i'm not in favor of pork barrel politics or anything like it. i just have a different experience with the things Sen. Byrd has done for my state.

having met the man on two occasions in the last year and a half(events my newspaper covered for which i had press credentials), i would hardly call Sen. Byrd senile or even crazy. he's as sharp as a tack and quick-witted. AND he still plays a fiddle and sings with a wonderful voice.

having lived in WV for more than half my life(and being born there), a great, great many of the projects/money Byrd has brought into WV, one of the POOREST states in the country, have greatly benefited it's average joe, hard-working-and-tax-paying citizens. it's not all pork. not even close.

and one more thing, Sen. Byrd was one of the FEW who spoke out against Bush from the very beginning. and he's one of the few who still really and truly believes in the Constitution. hell, the man still carries a copy of the Constitution inhis pocket EVERYWHERE he goes.

say what you will about the man, but he's done a lot of good things for his state. he's done far, far more than waste taxpayer money. the people of WV keep sending him to the Senate because he makes their lives better in tangible ways; he brings in decent roads, schools and jobs in a state that is starved for them.

even with all the pork barreling that he's guilty of, he may be old and cranky, but i'd be willing to be Byrd has done more good for his state than most other senators.
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[Usagi Miyamoto]

room
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[Major Tom]

in that case, it's a bit of a non-starter.

congress as a whole, let alone the majority party and especially a majority party with a slim majority, would willingly give up the secure priviledge of assigning chairmanship without minority and/or factional interference.

[Agamemnon]

[Jinx]

I haven't really given this a lot of thought. But, I have heard the arguments before and found myself torn between wanting to redistribute the power in Congress and not wanting to lose the value of experience. So, I want to toss an idea out for discussion and see what holes can be poked in it.

What if the term limit counter got reset if you left office, and/or it only applied in the specific house.

For example, we could set a limit of 4 consecutive terms in the House or 2 consecutive terms in the Senate. The member would be allowed to run for office again after sitting out one term. Senators could take a turn or two as a Rep before another seat in there state came open for them to run for Senate again. Likewise, and 8-year Rep would have to look for a Senate seat if s/he wanted to continue.

I truly believe that our founding fathers did not intend for service in the House or Senate to be a career. I also see the value in keeping those with experience in the process.
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[Major Tom]

i've thought along those lines, too, jinx.

one snag is the way political machines...err, i mean parties work -- the returning senator would probably be attempting to unseat a sitting senator from his own party...barring swing-state activity. that would probably make for a lot of ruffled feathers.