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The President(VIEW
STATISTICS)
We believe that establishing term limits
will free our elected representatives to spend their time working
for us, the people, not working to get themselves reelected.
Currently the President is limited to two lifetime terms,
which may be consecutive.
Allowing for two consecutive terms certainly limits a
President’s time in office, but it leaves us in the situation that
the first term is always colored by the specter of an upcoming
campaign for reelection.
This could influence the President’s decision-making during that
first term and certainly does influence his time available to do the
People’s Business while he is campaigning for his second term.
For example, President Obama officially
announced his candidacy for reelection in 2012 on April 4, 2011.
This is 19 months ahead of election day, over a year-and-
a-half of campaigning with the people footing at least part of the
bill.
As a rule of thumb, an incumbent president's campaign is expected to
reimburse the government the cost of a first class commercial
airline ticket for each person riding Air Force One to or from a
political event, campaign finance experts say.
But that amount doesn't come close to covering the
proportional operating cost of Air Force One, or the army of Secret
Service agents, White House advance teams, the fleet of Air Force
cargo planes transporting the presidential motorcade or the
helicopters that often ferry the president from an airport to a
remote site….
(DEVIN DWYER,
Presidential Piggybacking: Obama Trips Combine
Official, Political Business,
Feb.
23, 2012, ABC WORLD NEWS)
This is
nothing new with our current President.
This practice has been ongoing with every recent incumbent,
and, like it or not, the people end up involuntarily financing at
least part of the incumbent’s campaign – whether or not they favor
his or her reelection.
The basic rationale for the
allocation rules is that presidents in the modern age have no choice
but to live and travel in extreme security. If a campaign had to pay
the full cost of any nonofficial travel, presidents would be
confined to the White House — or would simply find ways to deem all
of their travel "official."
(Kathleen Hennessey and Christi Parsons,
Obama's Campaign Travel Raises Money and Criticism, February 17, 2012, Los Angeles Times, Washington Bureau)
But what
would be so bad about a president confined to the White House, or
only traveling on official business?
We believe that our proposal for a single consecutive 6-year
term for the President is the answer to this campaigning waste and
to the People’s involuntary funding of his or her campaign for
reelection. We believe this is the way to be sure that the
President’s time in office is truly in the People’s service.
The House(VIEW
STATISTICS)
We believe
that establishing term limits will free our elected representatives
to spend their time working for us, the people, not working to get
themselves reelected. The
historic two-year term for House members is not an efficient
time-frame to get work accomplished.
In the present environment, House members begin working on
their re-election as soon as they enter office.
By lengthening terms and allowing only one consecutive term,
we believe that our elected representatives will be freed from the
pressure of campaigning and will no longer be distracted from
serving their constituents.
Additionally, for increased continuity, House seats should be
up for reelection on a rotating schedule, similar to the Senate, so
that we will no longer be in the situation of replacing the entire
House at once.
The Senate(VIEW
STATISTICS)
We believe
that establishing term limits will free our elected representatives
to spend their time working for us, not working to get themselves
reelected. Current
six-year terms for Senators are appropriate, but it is neither
logical nor acceptable to spend up to two years and millions of
dollars campaigning to win a job paying $174,000.
Therefore, Senators should serve only one term before
returning to their districts and to real life.
According to Joe Biden, "I never had an interest in being a mayor
‘cause that’s a real job. You have to produce. That’s why I was able
to be a senator for 36 years.”
(Jennifer Bendery, Joe Biden: If We Lose Election, It Could Be To
'Barrage Of Super PAC Money,
03/30/2012,
The Huffington Post)
The Courts (VIEW
STATISTICS)
Federal
Judges (including Supreme Court Judges) should not be exempt from
term limits. This country’s rejection of monarchy conflicts with the
idea of appointing public servants to life terms.
Also, life expectancy has increased so much since the 1700s
that judges are serving much longer than was originally envisioned.
Since 1975, the average age of a justice leaving the Supreme
Court has jumped from an average of 67 years to 79 years, and the
average length of service has increased from 15 to 26 years.
This change
reflects, not only a longer life-expectancy, but also an increased
politicization of the timing of leaving office.
Justices are increasingly choosing their own time to leave
office by retirement, and thus have the ability to select whether
the current or the next President will name their successors.
This seemingly small influence will have the ability to
impact the philosophical makeup of the court for the next quarter of
a century, or more!
____________________________________________________
A
constitutional amendment is needed to eliminate the chaos that
permeates our government. It
is needed to eliminate the perception
that the government is not of the people, by the people, and for the
people, but rather that the government is for the governors.
It is of most importance that
we act immediately to incorporate these changes in order to save the
country from hands that cheat it of its potential and serve the few
instead of the country and its citizens as a whole.
Service to
the country on any of these levels, whether it be President,
Congressperson, or federal judge, is a privilege.
By limiting the service terms we are not only permitting more
citizens to serve their country, but we are incorporating more
different viewpoints into our government.
We are all participating in the privilege of serving the
country.
There are a
number of proposals at the moment for congressional term limits,
including two actually in Congress now:
H.J.Res. 20--112th Congress and S.J.Res. 11--112th Congress.
Also, some term limits on judges have been proposed in the
literature, but no resolutions are before Congress.
We have found no evidence, however, that anyone is currently
proposing different term limits on the President or Vice President.
(PROPOSALS)
Our proposal
is more stringent than any we have seen, and includes all four
groups.
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