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YoYoMoMa t1_ivk0g15 wrote

Term limits have been shown to increase private institutions and lobbyist power.

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boarbar t1_ivkl9bs wrote

You got a source for that?

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YoYoMoMa t1_ivkm13o wrote

Yeah. Lemme dig it back up.

https://www.brookings.edu/blog/fixgov/2018/01/18/five-reasons-to-oppose-congressional-term-limits/

Take lobbyist influence, for example. Term limit advocates contend lawmakers unconcerned with reelection will rebuff special interest pressures in favor of crafting and voting for legislation solely on its merits. However, the term limit literature commonly finds that more novice legislators will look to fill their own informational and policy gaps by an increased reliance on special interests and lobbyists. Relatedly, lawmakers in states with term limits have been found—including from this 2006 50-state survey—to increase deference to agencies, bureaucrats, and executives within their respective states and countries simply because the longer serving officials have more experience with the matters.

Advocates also suggest that limiting the number of terms lawmakers can serve will ultimately result in fewer members looking to capitalize on their Hill relationships and policymaking experience by becoming lobbyists themselves. Establishing term limits, however, would likely worsen the revolving door problem between Congress and the private sector given that mandating member exits ensures a predictable and consistently high number of former members available to peddle their influence. The revolving door phenomenon is considered a normative problem without term limits and relatively few departing members per cycle. With term limits, the number of influential former members would drastically increase, giving more private sector landing spots to members whose time has run out. More lobbying firms would have members able to advance their special interests with former members making use of their relationships and deep understanding of the ways of the Hill.

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baltinerdist t1_ivl0ynn wrote

I would be in favor of fairly expansive term limits to help mitigate the concerns but still encourage a little bit of turnover there. Something like 18 years for House and 18 years for Senate. Between the two, you would have the ability to have a 36 year career on the Hill which is more time than many people spend in one job.

That gives plenty of time for continuity and knowledge building but prevents any one person from setting up shop their entire life and preventing anyone from the next generation from having a chance due to the incumbency advantage.

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YoYoMoMa t1_ivl1csu wrote

I think that might be acceptable. But then again we would lose some expertise in a job that is insanely difficult to learn and relies heavily on institutional and procedural knowledge.

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CompetitionEgg t1_ivo5asm wrote

What’s the problem? I trust businesses to make better choices for Baltimore than I do its ineffectual and complicit politicians.

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YoYoMoMa t1_ivoc9cs wrote

You realize that politicians will still be there, right? The question is whether or not you want the people choosing their politicians or companies choosing them.

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CompetitionEgg t1_ivpjtx2 wrote

In Baltimore? For my benefit? Absolutely, 100% I want special interests deciding.

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The_Waxies_Dargle t1_ivk1rhy wrote

Also, they prevent bad politicians from becoming lifelong politicians. Since the political base is hell-bent on preventing any Republicans/Libertarians/Greens from even appearing on the ballot, it's the good tool (if a little blunt) for dislodging the dynastic political elite.

Is it perfect? No. Will some good get tossed with the bad? Yes. Does it mean the idea is bad? Not at all, especially since many offices in the state are term limited as well.

Hell, you could say the governor is the position that will suffer the most from brain drain and constant change. But few voters object since Hogan is a Republican (even the kind they bemoan for not existing for taking a public stand against the Orange one).

Besides, given the state of the city, I'd be willing to roll the dice with private institution and lobbyists. Why not give it a shot for a decade and see what happens?

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HowManyMeeses t1_ivk40rz wrote

>Also, they prevent bad politicians from becoming lifelong politicians.

Voting does this too.

>Why not give it a shot for a decade and see what happens?

The folks trying to get power don't like giving it up once they have it.

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The_Waxies_Dargle t1_ivkxu8p wrote

At a local level, incumbents enjoy a 90%+ reelection rate. Even standardizing for name recognition bias doesn't come close to explaining this.

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HowManyMeeses t1_ivkyhsn wrote

What point are you trying to make here?

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The_Waxies_Dargle t1_ivl4guv wrote

Trying to counter the argument that every election cycle is an unbiased way to hold elected officials accountable. We have data that confirms the opposite.

Those who get elected one time hold an almost insurmountable advantage over any challenger. So simply saying we have elections isn't addressing the scope of the problem of incumbency advantage. Hell, it isn't even acknowledging a problem might exist.

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HowManyMeeses t1_ivliia8 wrote

Nothing is unbiased. I'm saying there's already a tool in place to stop a politician from being in office.

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The_Waxies_Dargle t1_ivlm5ap wrote

I agree. I'll even agree that term limits aren't the perfect tool. My feeling against them has nothing to do with signs about Fox news posted by the Democrat machine that controls Baltimore but for the underlying curb on free speech they include. That said, for me, the juice is worth the squeeze.

Again, the incumbent advantage is almost impossible for challengers to overcome. While we might lose an effective servant after close to a decade of service, we are also excluding a ton of younger, more dynamic, more representative officials and the new/fresh thinking that comes with them.

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HowManyMeeses t1_ivlmuh0 wrote

>posted by the Democrat machine that controls Baltimore

LOL. I wonder why you might not mind that right-wing media is involved.

>but for the underlying curb on free speech they include

Do what now?

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The_Waxies_Dargle t1_ivm3bep wrote

I have zero love (or hate) for Fox. I'm a proud Libertarian nutjob that despises the Trump/Fox metastasized iteration of the Republican party.

My personal problem with term limits is that they represent a curb on freedom of speech/expression. My ability to express my political thought by voting for whoever I want to. I do believe however they they will do more good than harm. But it's not an absolute by any stretch, even if I'm forced to argue it like it is.

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YoYoMoMa t1_ivk45vh wrote

>Also, they prevent bad politicians from becoming lifelong politicians

That is up to the voters. Who you think are bad politicians must not be what most people think. No need to overrule democracy because you don't like the results.

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sellwinerugs t1_ivk8eum wrote

Exactly, term limits already exist; it’s called Election Day. When a candidate gets voted out their term is up.

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YoYoMoMa t1_ivka4n0 wrote

And I do not think term limits are always awful. But for low level legislative bodies they are just a giant gift to corporations.

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sellwinerugs t1_ivk8tkc wrote

Councilwoman Ramos’ take on it was a helpful read, although I can’t find it now. Basically it’s not the concept of term limits that is on the ballot, it’s how this question is written. It’s asking for all terms to come up at the same time which would cause mayhem in our political system if all positions were replaced at once with no continuity from previous admins.

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Bitsycat11 t1_ivk4nuz wrote

Roll the dice with private institutions and lobbyists???? Holy yikes lil bro

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The_Waxies_Dargle t1_ivkz25g wrote

Open to suggestions on improving the competency of our local elected officials. Because elections don't seem to be doing it.

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Bitsycat11 t1_ivl3qnu wrote

I don't think handing the keys to the city to Comcast or Coca-Cola would serve us any better ngl

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No-Lunch4249 t1_ivk45dy wrote

Term limits is throwing the baby out with the bath water.

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The_Waxies_Dargle t1_ivkynyy wrote

Yes, it's not perfect. You will force some competent people to either move up or move on. But the baby that goes out with the bathwater shouldn't get to live there in perpetuity just because they won election once.

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mcplaty t1_ivl2otk wrote

They're not winning once, they're winning every election. You want to circumvent democracy and force people out after an arbitrary amount of time rather than let the voters decide.

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The_Waxies_Dargle t1_ivlngse wrote

No. I want the voters to decide democratically if they want to counter the incumbent advantage to combat ineffectual and unrepresentative lifelong politicians. If it sucks, we can repeal it in X years.

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mcplaty t1_ivlq6z4 wrote

Voters decide if they want to counter incumbent advantage by... voting for someone else. Not by imposing term limits and removing the ability to continue voting for that person.

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The_Waxies_Dargle t1_ivm3sdt wrote

Right. Just so we are both clear that the incumbent advantage renders many votes moot by means of institutionalized advantage.

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Slime__queen t1_ivk9rnl wrote

Not everyone is in a fortunate enough position to be willing to just risk a decade of their life on “seeing what happens”

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The_Waxies_Dargle t1_ivkyfgm wrote

Risk a decade of life? That's some Trump level bombast right there friend.

This is term limits we're talking about, a concept integrated into our political system from local to national levels and used by democracies all over the world.

I'm not suggesting we abolish fiat currency or privatizing roads. Let's just do away with local fiefdoms in a single party power city and see if that produces better results.

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Slime__queen t1_ivl2hep wrote

I’m referring to you saying “give it a shot for a decade” and that not everyone will be as unaffected by what might go on in that decade as you seem to believe you will

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The_Waxies_Dargle t1_ivl3sj2 wrote

And I'm saying you're catastrophizing as a rhetorical slight of hand.

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shebang_bin_bash t1_ivljgqs wrote

What skin do you have in the game? Do you live in the city?

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The_Waxies_Dargle t1_ivllh0u wrote

Didn't know we had purity tests here, but yes, I live in the city and have for the past 20+ years.

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PrettyFIacco t1_ivkidq1 wrote

Lmao do you think private institutions and lobbyists have been excluded from our political process in literally any way?

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EfficiencySuch6361 t1_ivkhzhc wrote

U do realize that things could be worse? There are no actual fleshed-out Republican/libertarian strategies, their whole schtick in Baltimore is “we aren’t democrats” literally no policy otherwise. So how someone could assume that the groups without any explicit or sensible plans are going to improve things? Doesn’t make any sense

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