they are the evil cancer.

watch this video.
http://www.ted.com/talks/lawrence_lessig_we_the_people_and_the_republic_we_must_reclaim.html

Connecticut passed strict gun laws this pass week...they did not allow lesterland to change their vote.

Yes, it is time we change it so becoming a representative is not a career.

They could still bribe them while they are serving their term.

and nothing but public financing for campaigns.

Last edited Sun Apr 7, 2013, 09:08 AM - Edit history (2)

And close the revolving door, board it up, brick it up. Close the fucking thing.

Yeah I know they pay into SS . A couple of shots will leave a disconnect. A lot of them use their positions to create a safety net for themselves via the revolving door, if they had to count on the money they get from SS to even meet just one of their living expenses maybe they wouldn't be so quick to want to cut it. I don't know of one person who gets a pension any where near what they get.

Contrary to popular wisdom. You can search for Congressional pay on the Senate.gov website.

after retirement? I doubt it.

pension funds. But most of them are independently wealthy, so they will still cut Social Security.

Term limits don't help anything. We have them in California.

Electing a solid majority of Democrats is what has helped us in California.

K-Street is not closed. Mary Shapiro was a massive disappointment, she did nothing at the SEC and is going to Wall Street, her cover story is that she will never work in government again, to that I say good riddance and I wish she never, ever worked in government to begin with.

Government will work better when the people coming into government has and keep the best interests of the country foremost in their minds. If that had happened, a Mary Shapiro would have found a way to bring charges against a number of the most egregious violators on Wall Street instead of sitting at her fucking desk think of the day when she could cash in. If government worked properly, there would be no Louis Gohmert in Congress, nor a Ted Cruz, Rubio, or Paul.

a great part of our national damage is done by

RE-ELECTION campaign.

ONE TERM.

ONE TERM.

Only.

would merely buy fresh meat, each time. If anything, it would be worse, because we'd be forced to oust the good politicians along with the bad and if none of them are very experienced, they'd be more likely to accept whatever legislation ALEC hands them.

No institutional memory or understanding. No real leadership other than lobbyist money.

Get the corporate money out of the picture. Lobbyists are simply the middle man for the corporate money, so somehow, and I don't know how to be honest, the lobbying needs to stop. I also agree with an above statement about no retirement, let them pay into SS and that's it. Also no free health care, not while they are in office, and especially when they leave. They should have to pay for part of their coverage just like the rest of the country has to. The more they are worth the more they should pay in premiums.

Of course in order to do this congress has to pass laws to make it happen, and that I am afraid is not going to happen! At least not with the current crop of politicians in D.C.!

I don't think the Washington insiders who are feathering their nests at our expense want real reform. Really, we should be bringing some of them up on charges of graft and corruption. We need prosecutors who are up to investigating them and doing the job.

There are a lot of people in D.C. that need to be prosecuted, along with a lot of people on wall street, bankers, CEO's etc. I think that if a few of them ended up in prison for what they have done, it would go a long way in stopping the corruption there. As long as they know nothing will happen, the will continue to do whatever they want to make more money at the expense of the rest of the country.

and CEOs simply do a more effective job of petitioning because they can hire people to do their bidding in Washington while they do other things. The solution to their power I elusive because of the number of Americans, particularly in red states that vote against their best economic and social interests. The upper 10%, in particular the 1%, win because too many in the 90% are too dense or single minded to form the most powerful lobby of all, involved voters that vote their interests.

for a variety of reasons. New and inexperienced legislators don't understand the subtle nuances of parliamentary procedure and committee work, and it takes most of them around four years or so to learn to be effective legislators. And term limits remove experienced legislators who have the skill and knowledge to help neophytes (see for instance Robert Byrd and Ted Kennedy). Term limits also create a greater level of internecine tension among legislators seeking committee and leadership assignments to the detriment of effective conduct of legislative business. Politics is very frequently a profession; many politicians train for it, by studying history, political science, the law, intern with members of Congress, study at the Kennedy School, etc; professionalism in politicians, which is to say, knowledge of the sphere in which they work and the institutions they must work within, is generally held to be no bad thing in most democracies...with the exception of the United States, for some reason.

Term limits might effectively limit a legislator to proposing legislation and voting on it.

There'd be even more politicians looking to sell their votes because they'd be looking for cushy post-Congressional corporate jobs.

I've always thought term limits were a cop out for voters who are too lazy to do the research on who is running in their districts much less get out and work for candidates who might actually represent them.

it would simply eliminate the time before they become lobbyists

the minute they get elected. They really would have no accountability for such rogue politicians like Cruz, Ryan, or Bachman. Congress is messed up real bad now adding limits would make most of them vultures, picking the carcass of federal government for every thing they could get for themselves and associates. Peace.

Anti-abortionists don't give a shit about anything but controlling a woman's right to choose. I saw an anti-abortion woman driving last weekend, she was pathetic, in a shitty car and clearly alone (no man, no friends), her car was festered with anti-abortion stickers and campaign stickers for people like Murdoch of Indiana and Todd Akin. That woman can't see clearly enough to vote for anyone but a person that promises to end abortion, which they never can. People that vote with the tea party are as bad, most of them are religious right people that are attempting to re-label themselves after their past extremism discredited their causes. The tea party is nothing more than same old shit, different day.

The Tea Party in particular is famous for their 'new, citizen legislators' that come into office not to serve the public interest but cabals like FW, AFP and the Koch brothers, walking for them directly like Scott Brown, Scott Walker, Ted Cruz, etc. They come in as if they have new ideas and are altruistic, but most of them are down and out hucksters looking for what they expect to come after they have been promised for selling the commons to their backers.

Its called an election

If you've served for over 30 years (and you'd be SHOCKED at how many have, congresscritters AND senators) and haven't made an impact that improves the country in some way... get the FUCK out because you're not likely to.

want an effective legislature that gets things done? Reduce the over-representation of the least populated states (the Senate is much too powerful); stop requiring supermajorities for some things. It's really that simple.

I like two Senators per state. I think if you changed that you'd put those people in less populated states squarely in the sights of a tyranny by the majority.

Do away with supermajorities I like. That, and changing the filibuster rule to only live filibusters in the well of the Senate.

please explain how the tyranny of the minority is somehow better? And exactly why in a modern liberal democracy a minority of the population should be able to hold the majority hostage? It's because the Senate is too powerful and unrepresentative, and because the Senate has responsibilities that it really shouldn't, that a significant number of problems of American governance arise in the first place. (That and the whole issue of "states' rights" and federalism.)

larger than that for House seats, say 1.5 million citizens per Senator. California should not have the same number of Senators as Tennessee, California should have far more Senators.

Tennessee, Wyoming and Montana. It's a travesty.

Thinly populated red states hold the rest of the nation hostage because they, like massive states, get two Senators. That is bullshit. Highly populated states should have more Senators.

Here you can serve three 2-year terms in the House and two 4-year terms in the Senate - and that's all you can ever serve for therest of your life.

By the time you know the ropes well enough to be effective, you have to leave.

Why when Democratic candidates about to annhiliate the republican party would one want to now change it.

Thanks but no thanks.

The republican obstructionism shall end and actually they should let the president run again after a twelve year break after their 2nd term.

Remember FDR did not do what he wanted on day one. It took time.

We have them here in Michigan, and what we end up with is a constant bunch of newbs, not knowing what's going on and unable to do anything but re-invent the wheel.

Makes ya wonder. The Plutocracy would DIE if we had term limits in place. Can't have that...

Term limits on politicians would simply let the private sector take even more control than they have already, since they would not be bound by any such limits.

Rather than term limits, what we really need to do is have strict limits on the amount of money that can be spent in a campaign, and also limits on the size of contributions, and outlaw most of the lobbying (== legalized bribery) that goes on in politics in this country. Also get rid of the revolving doors that mean big, rich companies can dangle future lucrative positions in front of politicians in return for legislation and votes that are favorable to those companies.

Campaign finance reform with real teeth in it is what we need.

Not that I expect to see it anytime soon.

Congress ever again, along with the Senate going to majority rule instead of the 60 vote bullshit. Red state democrats need to redouble their efforts, enroll more like minded voters and turn the jerks that represent them out of office.

I'm 60 years old and the country has known for my entire life that that the corruption is rampant with bribes from the lobbyist within all of our politicians. They make the fucking rules and I don't care, you can vote till your blue in the face, they won't offer the chance to vote for reform. The politicians don't fucking want reform. Nothing will change EVER until the money is removed from the greedy bastards that have this country fucked up in the first place. And they ain't going to let that happen.

We need to look in the mirror about who we elect.

It's so fashionable to blame "the politicians" but they are elected.

We need to take responsibility. Once we do that, we don't need rules to control ourselves.

Staff members, of course, have no term limits, so each newbie Congresscritter would have a staff of experienced Washington insiders, with their own power structure, contacts, etc that would run in parallel to and probably be far more effective than the congressional procedures.

They would write the legislation, they would control who saw the Congressmen, they would control what reports did and didn't come to his desk, etc. They would be all powerful, with clueless Congressmen barely getting a handle on the situations before being term-limited out.

We have term limits and it is a nightmare. The institutional memory and experience is gone among the Reps and Senators, but lobbyists and staff have some of it. When a job is temporary, people are always looking out for the next one.
In this case it is usually lobbying. We are in a situation where the General Assembly keeps churning out lobbyists who are getting cushy jobs with golden parachutes as their terms expire.

Meanwhile clueless novices keep getting elected and they waste time because it's fun to fight over every bill. They behave as if they think they are in a movie or something. It's very very bad.

... would be lobbyists and ALEC employees.

Just ask us Californians how well this scheme is working out for us.

that change in the law would have to come from congress and they'd NEVER even suggest something like that, let alone pass it!

.... require action by the very people those bad policies enrich.

Oh wait...

It also ramps up the sprint the corporate cush and the money probably becomes more important too.

They also would have to pass it and if we could just get them to pass things we could take the money out which would do a hell of a lot more all around. Or banning the revolving doors. Or fair and accurate elections. Any number of things.

They are also more free to tell the people that elected them to sit and spin. Hell, it seems like the consequences are heavily weighted toward those who serve the people, the next stop is speaking tours and corporate boards if you sell the people out otherwise...????

Doesn't seem a sensible "holy grail" to me. Back burner driver of corruption.

The politicians sort of divvy up the jobs and make deals. It doesn't change anything.

What did change things was finally getting a solid majority of Democrats in everywhere. They work and solve problems. They aren't all that liberal. Even the liberal ones aren't overly liberal.

But Democrats believe in government and, when in charge, give it their best. That makes it work better.

Term limits just mean that politicians rotate their jobs. They trade jobs. "It's my turn for job x-y-z now. Not yours." That's what term limits do to politics.

Wisest thing -- make sure Democrats get elected. Aside from the flaws in their political philosophy and policies, Republicans are incompetent when it comes to government.