Term Limits Fix the Symptom but the Representation Amendment Cures the Disease
The American people want greater turnover in Congress. That’s why so many people support term limits, right? No. The American people want awesome representation. Term limits do give you greater turnover in Congress. But higher turnover does not equate to better representation. If you want Congress to provide you with awesome representation, you want the Representation Amendment.
How is it possible that one person can hold a seat in Congress for forty years? It’s an elected position. The majority of voters chose that person again and again. Is it possible the incumbent is so beloved by voters — generations of voters! — she keeps getting re-elected? Maybe. Or maybe there are other reasons.
Why Do They Keep Getting Elected?
Let’s examine the “typical” election for Congress. Your state determines how easy it is for a candidate to get on the ballot. A ballot in one state rarely includes more than two candidates (one Democrat and one Republican). The ballot in another state might have a dozen candidates. On the surface, you appear to have a choice. But, do you?
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Your state legislature defines the House of Representatives districts in your state. Your House district was likely drawn to give the advantage to either the Democrat candidate or the Republican candidate. (This is why your vote for your state legislators matters.) So, you live in a House district already leaning left or right.
If your district leans to the left, the Democrat candidate enjoys the advantage in the race. Let’s say your district is “safely” on the blue side. Your House district will send a Democrat to the House. Your incumbent is a Democrat, so the incumbent wins. Again and again.
Now you understand why your current representative will almost certainly win re-election in the general election in November. But, there was a primary back in the spring, right? Probably. Why does the incumbent win again and again? Money, name recognition, and a rock-solid campaign engine.
Your elected representative has the means to make things happen in Congress and is the anticipated favorite to win the next election. That draws in campaign donations. People like to back a winner. With all those donations, the incumbent can out-spend just about any primary challenger.
In a district of more than 700,000 people, advertising goes a long way. For most voters, a television advertisement is the only time they ever see the candidates. The challengers in the primary lack the funds necessary to earn the name recognition they need to get the votes on the ballot in the primary.
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A House district with 700,000 or more people is simply too large for a challenger to meet one-on-one with enough voters to counter the advertisements blanketing the airwaves in support of the incumbent. For a solution to this, see the post on The Representation Amendment Gives You the Viable Third Party.
In some cases, multiple challengers split the vote in the primary. Suppose your current representative is not especially popular with Democrats voting in the primary. With four challengers, the vote splits five ways. Maybe the incumbent would have lost to a single challenger. But four challengers dilutes the opposition, and the incumbent comes out on top.
In the event of a run-off election, the vote often comes down to the incumbent and one challenger. Those people who voted for the three candidates eliminated from the run-off must choose between the incumbent and the challenger. If the incumbent was the second choice for most of those voters, the incumbent again wins the primary. Remember, the incumbent probably has more money, higher name recognition, and a powerful campaign engine. The challenger is simply out-classed.
So, the incumbent has the advantage in the primary, and is almost certainly a lock for winning the general election in your heavily Democrat House district.
That is how one person stays in Congress for so long.
And if you think it’s difficult to defeat a sitting House member in a district of 700,000, try replacing a senator! A senator holds a seat for six years. That’s six years of fundraising for the next election. How many challengers for that Senate seat were raising campaign funds for those six years? None. Their campaign fundraising began two years before the election, if even that early. The senator has six years to grow an already successful campaign engine. Your senator walks into every race the odds-on favorite, and for good reason.
Term Limits Fall Short
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The Term Limit Revolution
But term limits are supposed to solve this problem. Will they? You do get some new faces in Congress. No debate there. But will those new members of Congress translate to greater representation? Not necessarily.
New members of Congress will certainly come in with new ideas and great enthusiasm. But it’s still the same old Congress, with the same old rules, meeting in a building surrounded by thousands of lobbyists. The members still write legislation by dividing into two groups (Democrat and Republican) and battling along that front on just about everything. The Democrat and Republican parties still have a lock on Congress, because the cost to win a House or Senate seat still runs into the tens of millions of dollars.
So, what really changes? Members will rise to senior levels quicker, and then leave when term limits dictate they leave. So if the people are just as assured of winning re-election as were members of Congress before term limits, how are they going to be more responsive to their constituents than were members of Congress before term limits? Not much.
The Representation Amendment Cures the Disease
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Limiting Legislative Terms
The Representation Amendment restructures Congress to make sure your voice is heard. That’s what you wanted from term limits, after all.
Your state speaks for you in the Senate. What percentage of state legislators’ seats turn over in the six year term of one of your senators? Those new state legislators will take a fresh look at your senator when his term is up. You should see a higher turnover in the Senate as voting habits shift in your state. Your senator will be very attuned to the needs of your state.
A person who lives near you will speak for you in the House. In your tiny House district, you’ll have an opportunity to meet each candidate for the seat in person. Every voter will. Because of that, every two years, the incumbent will have to re-introduce herself to the voters. Because in a tiny district, the challenger walking door-to-door, meeting and talking to voters, brings about the upset win.
Conclusion
The Representation Amendment is superior to the Term Limits Amendment because it creates an environment in which seats in Congress are easier to flip. Conversely, the Representation Amendment allows the voters to keep a popular member of Congress. If your state legislature elects the same person to the Senate for 24 years, maybe it’s because that person is the best person for the job. Taking away the right of the people to select the same person three times in a row is just as wrong as tolerating a system that makes removing an elected official next to impossible.
So, when somebody brings up term limits as the cure for what ails Congress, mention that Congress is what ails Congress, and the Representation Amendment is the true cure.
Learn more about why the Representation Amendment is the constitutional amendment we need today. Read the book.
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The Representation Amendment: Because we don’t have enough people in Congress and the people already there are the wrong ones
