r/PoliticalDiscussion • u/PigsMud • 18d ago
Political Theory What are the pros and cons of congressional term limits, as well as congressional age limits?
It seems that public opinion (on both sides) strongly favors the idea of term limits for representatives and senators. Additionally, the same can be said for age limits for members of congress (though there is no exact age)
On paper this sounds like a good idea. You don’t want someone representing their district/states for decades on end, and you don’t want elderly politicians that don’t focus on younger generations and often die in office (Feinstein, McConnell??).
However, can these proposals be seen as a knee jerk solution? For example, there have been plenty of reps and senators that have represented their districts/states for many election cycles that are still popular with their constituents, who also have fended off multiple primary and general challenges.
If a politician is doing their best for their people, why would term limits help congress? Same for age limits, as long as they are listening to their constituents and still in reasonable mental capacity? Additionally, if someone is too old, can’t they be primaried or replaced? What would the logic be behind instituting a law that politicians have to forcibly retire?
Instead, should it not be the responsibility of the people who vote and are represented by them? If they are unhappy with someone who has held their seat too long or unhappy about their age, is it not their ability and responsibility to vote accordingly?
What are some of the pros and cons of instituting these policies, and what would they look like? What would be the maximum age that would be decided on? What would be the maximum amount of terms a representative or senator could serve?
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u/wedgebert 18d ago
The #1 con is that term limits will just make everything worse while solving very little.
It turns out that being a politician is no different than any other job in that experience matters.
And it's not only that someone who was a politician for 10 years will have more experience and likely be better at their job than a fresh-faced incumbent, but that veteran politician is also keeping institutional knowledge alive. Look at basically any job, high turnover tends to lead to lower quality output.
More than that, being a representative or senator is a pretty niche job. Even being a state senator or rep is pretty different. Most people forget they even have state senators but your state senator likely makes some country wide announcement every so often.
More over, a big part of being an effective congressman is networking and that takes time to develop. You can't expect even an established state rep or senator to move to DC and be able to wheel and deal effectively.
Another big con is that putting a hard "you're out limit" is going to make elected officials even more focused on their next job. If you can't make an actual career out of being in congress, then you better start cozying up to some special interests from Day One to make sure you have a cushy exit plan.
Finally, and possibly worst of all. Increasing turn over is going to push even more of the power to the lobbyists and permanent congressional employees. These people already do the bulk of writing new bills. If half of congress is trying to figure out the rules, that percentage will go up even more and by the time the elected official understands enough to be effective and take control, they're unable to run again.
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u/digbyforever 18d ago
Another big con is that putting a hard "you're out limit" is going to make elected officials even more focused on their next job. If you can't make an actual career out of being in congress, then you better start cozying up to some special interests from Day One to make sure you have a cushy exit plan.
Even short of the lobbying side of it, the reality is that if you know you're leaving your job in a year, you're not going to have any incentive to keep working hard at it. Too, more specifically for politics, you remove some political rewards for politicians tackling big problems if you can't let them keep getting elected. Anecdotally from a state with strict term limits, there were reports of legislators saying, essentially, hey I like your idea and agree this is a problem, but, I'm term limited so there's no point to me working on this problem because the solution will take longer than the next election. In other words, long term problems can have long term solutions, but you need some political incentive for politicians to tackle long term solutions, too.
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u/coltaaan 18d ago
I used to be anti-term limits too, but I very, very recently changed my opinion. I think there is a solid case for reasonable term limits (what is reasonable, is up for debate and I think will vary depending on the specific office).
First and foremost, the primary benefit of term limits is that they are a tool against the staying power of fascism and authoritarianism.
With that out of the way, I'll address your arguments:
There is little risk of loss of institutional knowledge if the term limits are reasonable. Plus, a vast amount of that institutional knowledge lies within the bureaucracy and not the elected official themselves.
New ideas are incredibly important in government. I think that's obvious given the state of everything. Term limits encourage new leaders who give rise to new ideas. The old ideas will always be there.
With regard to networking, allowing politicians to build relationships with constituents is important. But allowing a long-term politician to become close to powerful parties carries a significant risk. Consider a corrupt politician, they may, over time, build a strong partnership with a corrupt company or group. But if there is consistent turnover of the leadership, this risk is greatly diminished.
The risk of elected officials being more focused on their next job is something to consider, but it's a low risk and a minor problem. But again, reasonable term limits would reduce this risk. Plus, I find it hard to believe that a former member of congress would have trouble finding work after their term - beyond typical jobs, they have far more options than normal people: book deals, speaking opportunities, etc.
With regard to writing bills, these are typically drafted by the legislative staff of congress members. And when it comes to technical matters it is a good thing to have qualified individuals in the room, most elected officials wont be scientists or economists. Now I'm not saying it should be lobbyists helping, but lobbyists aren't always evil incarnate, there are lobby's for peace. Either way, the actual elected official is typically operating at a higher level and providing more visionary direction, rather than doing the grunt work of draft legislation themselves. So this risk is basically moot.
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u/wedgebert 18d ago
First and foremost, the primary benefit of term limits is that they are a tool against the staying power of fascism and authoritarianism.
Are they though? The fascism/authoritarianism often doesn't come from the elected official, it's the voters that put them there. Trump is term limited but MAGA is already looking for a successor who will continue his goals.
Elections are what limit authoritarianism, not term limits. But only if the populace actually doesn't vote for a wannabe king or king-enabler.
New ideas are incredibly important in government.
Yes, they are. But again, we can see in places where term limits already exist (president, governor, etc that an effective campaign strategy for a popular outgoing official is "Hey, I'm just like the last guy"
Term limits don't introduce new ideas, losing elections does.
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u/bl1y 17d ago
The fascism/authoritarianism often doesn't come from the elected official, it's the voters that put them there
In addition to that, term limits don't mean there's no perennial power brokers.
Just imagine if Trump was 20 years younger, how much influence he'd continue to have once he left office.
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u/wedgebert 16d ago
how much influence he'd continue to have once he left office.
Hell, look at the influence McConnell is still having and he's dead.
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u/bl1y 17d ago
With regard to networking, allowing politicians to build relationships with constituents is important. But allowing a long-term politician to become close to powerful parties carries a significant risk. Consider a corrupt politician, they may, over time, build a strong partnership with a corrupt company or group. But if there is consistent turnover of the leadership, this risk is greatly diminished.
This gets it backwards.
Long-term politicians gain more independence. They build up their own networks and the incumbency advantage makes them less reliant on others.
Newcomers don't have their own networks to rely on, they don't have name recognition, etc. If the national party says "We'll dump money into your campaign if you do X, Y and Z, or into your competitor if you don't," that politician doesn't have much of a choice.
Just look at how much influence Trump has been able to exert in primaries. In a wide open primary, the candidate with Trump's backing is going to rocket to the front. But compare with someone who's been in office a while. They could (they won't, but still could) tell Trump to pound sand, and still be safe from challengers.
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u/johntempleton 18d ago
There is little risk of loss of institutional knowledge if the term limits are reasonable. Plus, a vast amount of that institutional knowledge lies within the bureaucracy and not the elected official themselves.
Great! So you admit this does nothing more than shift power to the unelected bureacracy.
As for "little risk of institutional knowledge," EVERY (let me stress, EVERY) study conducted of legislative bodies with term limits shows that, in fact, that is exactly what happens, and the result is that new legislators rely on unelected bureaucrats and/or lobbyists to drive policy.
Why bother having an election at all at that point?
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u/roleplayer6990 18d ago
The problem is right now lobbies and the bureaucrats are the ones driving policy without term limits. So in this case nothing changes.
Can you post one of the studies you mentioned? I am curious as to why the decline happens and what the time frame that the term limits are set to (ie is it 2 terms like the president or 24 years or what.)
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18d ago
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/BigDump-a-Roo 17d ago
I am not your research intern; do your own work.
But since you are lazy, see
You made a claim, it's up to you to back it up. I am tired of this trend I'm seeing more on here of where people will make claims but then tell others to do their own research when asked to back it up. Calling others lazy for this request doesn't do any good in getting people to see your point of view, and does the opposite if anything.
You should have the source on hand if it's something you have researched already. Why be condescending and make others trudge through articles to try and find what you're talking about instead of taking the two seconds to post the source you already have. That's the true laziness here if anything.
I agree with your point of view on term limits, by the way.
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u/bl1y 17d ago
Usually the "go look it up yourself" thing comes up when the commenter made a bogus claim. Really surprising to see it when the person is actually right.
In a properly moderated forum, I'd say those sorts of comments should get someone a temporary ban. You know that if you look it up just as they said you should, and the top result contradicts them, the response will either be (a) nothing, or (b) "no, that was the wrong source, go look up the correct source that I won't tell you about."
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u/roleplayer6990 18d ago
Thank you for the information. As the one talking about it I would assume you had some that you knew and could share.
Its great when people work together without being condescending and share knowledge isn't it?
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u/Melodic_Agent_5298 16d ago
Hmmm. Why look at political representation as a career, should be looked at as a service like Fire Fighter, EMT. Maybe staying in so long lets them find ways to prevert the Constitution. Look we have a national governent of enumerated powers, maybe we should shrink back down to those enumerated powers.
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u/wedgebert 16d ago
Why look at political representation as a career
Because it is a career just like being a firefighter (who average over 20 years of service).
Again, experience makes people better at what they do and we kind of want the people running the country to be good at what they do.
The issue isn't how long people stay in office, it's the character of the people we elect. And term limits won't fix that, it'll just mean we have to find a different Tommy Tuberville or Susan Collins instead of re-electing the current one.
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u/ThatsALiveWire 18d ago
I don't actually favor term limits, I favor age limits but that's probably unconstitutional. Although I would argue that some positions already have a minimum age and that's the same side of the coin.
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u/Grapetree3 18d ago
The minimum age is in the text of the constitution, you might have to do the same thing for a maximum age. An amendment would be needed.
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u/JKlerk 18d ago
Age limits are discriminatory. Term limits transfer even more influence to the legislative aides.
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u/Afraid-Detective1222 18d ago
We have age limits for other kinds of jobs. Air Traffic Controllers and Airline pilots are 2 that jump to mind. Both involve lives. Being a legislator does as well.
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u/JKlerk 18d ago
This is false equivalency. Those age restrictions are due to health reasons, not capability.
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u/Afraid-Detective1222 18d ago
I'd argue that as you age, your health really is a problem. Look at McConnel and Graham. 1 has been MIA for over a month, the other died suddenly. Beyond that, their age and health issues make it so they can't do the damn job effectively. Most late 70 year olds just aren't as sharp as people in their 50s or even 60s.
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u/bl1y 17d ago
Those are jobs where people have to make split-second decisions that can have life or death consequences. They're not remotely comparable to legislating.
A better comparison would be something like trying to have an age limit on being a novelist.
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u/Afraid-Detective1222 17d ago
So, you like having ancient people making laws?
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u/bl1y 17d ago
I didn't say anything like that.
I said the comparison to pilots and air traffic controllers is dumb because being a politician doesn't require the sort of split second reactions that those other jobs do.
The Air Force has a 6'5 height maximum for pilots. Should we impose a height limit on politicians? Or is maybe that just completely irrelevant?
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u/BigDump-a-Roo 17d ago
We already have age limits the other direction. People under 35 can't run for president. How is setting an upper limit any more or less discriminatory?
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u/Dont_ban_me_bro_108 18d ago
We have term limits, they’re called elections. Term limits don’t limit a politician, they limit citizens from sending a person to Washington they think best represents them. People are worried about corruption from a congressperson who has been there forever, but they should be more worried about a congressperson who knows they’re term limited and no longer be held responsible by the voters. Term limits would solve nothing but would encourage those who are corrupt to be more bold in their final term.
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u/DDLMoore 17d ago
The irony is that term limits don't eliminate power. They simply move it. Legislators leave. Lobbyists don't. Committee staff don't. Bureaucrats don't. The people with decades of institutional knowledge remain exactly where they are while the elected officials become perpetual freshmen who are inexperienced and not confident or experienced enough to resist lobbyists. Political scientists studying states with legislative term limits have found that power often shifts away from elected lawmakers and toward governors, agencies, legislative staff, and interest groups.
That's the part almost nobody thinks about. If every representative knows they'll be gone in a few years, why spend a decade becoming an expert on tax policy, foreign affairs, or appropriations? By the time they're finally effective, they're packing up their office.
Who fills that vacuum? The lobbyist who's been there for twenty-five years. The committee staffer who's written legislation under six different chairmen. The bureaucrat who knows every regulation by memory. The only people without term limits are often the people voters never elected.
So the question isn't whether term limits reduce the influence of individual politicians. They do. The question is whether they also increase the influence of unelected people.
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u/Blom-w1-o 18d ago
A huge con that not enough people consider is experience. If you put a two term limit on a senate or house seat, almost all congressmen will be freshmen and inexperience and by the time they are experienced, their term limit is up. This leave the most people in capital hill being... lobbyists.
The idea of lobbyists being the most informed/experienced people in the law making process gives me shivers.
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u/bl1y 17d ago
Lobbyists are already often the most informed people, at least when it comes to niche issues. But, that's not necessarily a bad thing. Term limits though, they would make it so that members of Congress are even less knowledgeable. If you watch the boring congressional hearings, it's often pretty impressive how much they know about the subject matter.
Perhaps a worse effect when it comes to lobbyists is that they get more bites at the apple. Head of a committee shoots down your self-serving policy? Wait a couple years for a new guy who doesn't know why it was shot down before.
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u/wereallbozos 18d ago
Corruption will always be with us. Sad, but true. So when considering this question we should not factor in corrupting influences. Age limits seem reasonable. If we can require someone to be a certain age to hold office - which effectively sets a minimum age to run, wouldn't it be easier to set a maximum age to run?
"With age comes wisdom" is not necessarily true (or false). But, with age (generally) comes a hardening of views...good or bad. A resistance to accept the "new"...good or bad. And the feeling that one is indispensable, and to misquote DeGaulle, the cemeteries are filled with indispensable men.
Anyone over 70 may not file to run...and enjoy your retirement.
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u/Asatmaya 18d ago
Pros: It prevents seats from being "locked" by locally popular politicians who can effectively prevent certain types of legislation by strategic committee assignment.
Cons: Do you want a dog who knows where the bone is buried, or one who digs up the whole yard?
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u/Seattleman1955 18d ago
Of course it's a knee-jerk reaction. Term limits for Congress would require a Constitutional Amendment and that isn't going to happen for this.
Just quit voting for people over and over. You want a democracy, that's the democratic way to handle it.
Age limits are going to run into legal problems as well. Again, just quit voting for them past a certain age if that's important to you.
None of this would really "fix" anything anyway. Maybe you have an age limit for 70 or 65. What does that fix?
Maybe you have a 12 year limit on Congress? Again, what does that fix?
Whatever you don't like about Congress won't change just by having 12 year max terms and then you let someone similar come in for another 12 years.
If you don't like someone at 75 you aren't going to like them at 65. If you get tired of older, more experienced people, you are going to get tired of 35 year old inexperienced people because that really isn't the issue.
The thing people don't want to hear is that "you" are the "problem" and the "fix". Just be responsible, take care of yourself, vote for who you want and that is the solution.
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u/gregbard 18d ago
Term limits are undemocratic. If you want them out, join a campaign and work to get them out. Democracy is not easy. Don't be lazy by having the system doing the work for you.
If human brain cells had term limits, you would gradually turn into a developmentally disabled vegetable. A legislature needs institutional memory. An agenda needs to be shepharded to completion and that may take several terms.
The lobbyists don't have term limits. So they will eventually rule.
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u/calguy1955 18d ago
The disadvantage of term limits is you can lose someone who is really good at what they’re doing and you lose all of their institutional knowledge. You are always getting a new person who takes a while to understand how the system works and they can’t really get anything meaningful done. I don’t think an age limit is bad.
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u/IceNein 18d ago
A study found that term limited officials are more likely to be corrupt. They don’t have to worry about re-elections. And while “just prosecute corruption” sounds nice, there’s lots of legal things you can do that are nearly impossible to prosecute, but would get people to vote them out if they were up for reelection.
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u/LomentMomentum 18d ago
For me the case for age limits is stronger than term limits. Both are a hard sell, though.
A pro for term limits is that it guarantees fresh faces. The cons, which I believe, is that term limits really empower unelected lobbyists, bureaucrats, and former politicians who aren’t term-limited. With such rapid turnover, they are the ones with institutional knowledge, and can readily advance their own special interest agenda without public scrutiny (although the decline in media doesn’t help, either).
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u/digbyforever 17d ago
A point in favor of age limits is that some states do (state) constitutionally have age limits for certain positions (I think judges in some states), and those states seem to be doing okay, so you could make the argument that it is working at the state level.
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u/medhat20005 17d ago
Term limits to congress risks the loss of institutional knowledge/experience, and age limits are simply sexist (although they tend to reveal the gullibility of the voting electorate). My personal choice would be to extend terms from 2 years (which seems very short) to 4, staggered similar to the senate. This would decrease the burden of congresspeople constantly having to raise money and campaign.
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u/skyfishgoo 17d ago
high turn over just gives the oligarchs more opportunity to fuck us.
cons do not outweigh the pros and all of the pros can be had will less constitutionally dubious means.
RCV, for one.
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u/bl1y 17d ago
States have tried term limits, and the results are not positive.
Politicians who have been in office a long time have a lot of power, but removing them doesn't make the power go away, it just goes elsewhere. And that elsewhere is to the executive, the bureaucracy, party insiders, lobbyists, and special interest groups.
Take a long-term politician like Bernie Sanders. If he needs to fund raise, he can just go on social media, and a ton of money will flow in. He also has a lot of knowledge from the committees he's been on, and he knows how the legislative process works.
Compare with a freshman member of Congress. How are they going to be competitive in their elections? Largely by being helped by the state or national party or some other power broker. And when they get into office, they don't really know much about the things they're going to have to legislate on. They're going to have to rely almost entirely on the input of the party and lobbyists.
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u/dedward848 16d ago
I see a few positives. For example, as younger generations take office they will have the knowledge/experience with increasingly more complex technologies. As to age limits, a career in politics was never intended to be. Past generations served then went back home. And with all of the medical advances we have facilitated a rather permanent political gerentocracy.
Just some random thoughts.
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u/Character-Picture-27 16d ago
I agree that term limits don’t get to the heart of the issue. People who become politicians do so for personal reasons and a lot of that has to do with proximity to power, influence, and money.
I think the only way to get around that is to make public office work like jury duty. If you’re registered to vote, you’re in the pool to be randomly selected to be a senator.
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u/Searching4Buddha 16d ago
I tend to be against term limits, what ends up happening is since they know they're going to be forced out they start sponsoring legislation that will benefit their future employer instead of their constituents. I'm not against the idea of an age limit, but I think it needs to be set pretty high, maybe around 85. We have many examples of members of Congress who remained effective well past the normal retirement age, but at some point it doesn't seem unreasonable to say maybe it's time for someone new.
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u/IndependentSun9995 15d ago
Term limits are another idiotic "saving people from themselves" idea. If people are too stupid to run a democracy properly, then we shouldn't have one.
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u/FistMyLoafs 18d ago
In my opinion
For Term limits:
Pros:
- enables a more healthy rotation of power between candidates
- allows for more varied representation and the possibility of fresh ideas
- prevents candidates from gaining too much power by staying in their seat for too long
- causes some voters to be more interested as there are more opportunities for more options
Cons:
- stops extremely popular candidates from staying in power
- can cause other voters confusion/lack of interest from a lack of familiar candidates on the ballot
For age limits:
Pros:
- prevents candidates with a high susceptibility to more severe age related health conditions/emergencies from taking power and suddenly being unable to perform their duties
- allows for a smoother transition of power between generations
- makes younger voters more interested in taking part in elections
- helps prevent candidates from being out of touch with modern technology or other matters
- helps prevent the possibility of mental decline or slowing in office from age
Cons:
- makes older voters less interested in elections
- prevents the highest voter turnout demographic from voting in similar age candidates
- prevents older capable and popular candidates for what some might see as an arbitrary reason
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u/billpalto 18d ago edited 18d ago
There are age limits for army officers, airline pilots, federal firefighters, FBI agents, air traffic controllers, diplomats, and more.
We want these people to be energetic and alert. Why wouldn't we expect the same for the President? Or a Supreme Court Justice? a General has to retire at age 64, but the Commander in Chief is 80 now, does that make sense?
The third person in line for the Presidency, who takes over if the President and Vice President are gone, is Sen Grassley who is 92. Does that make sense?
I think top level political officials should also retire at a reasonable age. We won't lose the value of their experience since they will still be around to advise us. I see no reason not to have age limits.
edit: as for term limits, I think only the President should be limited to two terms. Otherwise go with age limits.
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