Introduction

Career politicians serve themselves. Citizen politicians serve the citizens. The country’s successful founding depended on, and anticipated the continuation of, citizen politicians to serve the country. Today we have career politicians who serve themselves.

We must return to the days of citizen politicians by voting in term limits.  Career politicians will fight us tooth and nail. That’s the subject of today’s 10-minute podcast.

Continuing

Passed by Congress in 1947, and ratified by the states on February 27, 1951, the Twenty-Second Amendment limits an elected president to two terms in office, a total of eight years. (There is an exception, but it is minor and does not matter much.) We have term limits with the presidency, the highest level of our government. Many state and local governments have term limits for some offices as well. It is past time for the US to have term limits for Congress.

Geroge Washington term limited himself--twice. His republican (note the small “r”) values gave him a distaste for career rule, even for himself. He gave up power at the end of the revolutionary war when he resigned his military commission, and again at the end of his second term as president when he refused pleas to seek a third term. He set a standard for American presidents that lasted until FDR, Franklin D. Roosevelt, who ran for and was elected to four terms. King George III, king of England during Washington’s time, and clearly not term limited, asked his American painter, Benjamin West, what George Washington would do after winning independence. West replied, “They say he will return to his farm.”

“If he does that,” the incredulous monarch replied, “he will be the greatest man in the world.”

Washington had served his country extraordinarily well both  militarily and politically; I argue better than anyone before or since. Yet he walked away from those pleading with him to stay in power. And I agree with King George that this final step of walking away from power and adulation made Washington a truly great man. And as hard as power and adoration are to attain, walking away from them at the height of both must be all that much more difficult.

Yet today we have politicians on both sides of the aisle scheming and plotting to raise more and more campaign money and to out promise each other about what they will give to the voters--if only they will vote for them. Today’s politicians are shameless in their drive to attain and keep power. If Washington was the “greatest man” because he walked away from both military and political power, what does that make our current pack of politicians where many will say and do anything to cling to and increase their power?

Career politicians serve themselves; citizen politicians serve the citizens.

Here’s a specific suggestion about Congressional term limits: one term for Senators (6 years) and three terms for Representatives (three, two-year terms). If the limits are slightly higher, no matter. But we must demand limits. And if you are incensed, as am I, about the power that lobbyists gain from contributing cash to multiple campaigns for the same politician, know that term limits will cause lobbyists to lose a lot of their power. Lobbyists who wine and dine candidates, along with contributing to many of their campaigns over the decades, build up real power and influence with that office holder. Politicians need money--and lots of it--to stay in power. Lobbyists have the money to help them do exactly that. It does not take a lot of thought to know with certainty that politicians will use at least some of their long-held power to make the helpfully generous lobbyists happy. If the best a lobbyist can do is to contribute to six years in power for someone in Congress, as opposed to, say, 30 or 40 years, their power is greatly reduced.