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Term Limits
Without term limits, nothing prevents the eruption
of bribery, graft, and unbridled corruption.
Too few of our founders felt our preservation
depended on forced periodic rotation.
Our lives are controlled by the ones we’ve elected,
who once in the swamp, can’t help getting infected,
so each thirsts for nothing but more adoration
while only pretending they’re serving our nation.
Each second year, we launch House-seat-seeking missiles
who, once a small taste of prestige wets their whistles,
will never be able to ever surrender
the power they hold, with its fame and its splendor.
Each sixth year, a retinue, whose only tenet
is that each should spend their whole life in the Senate,
regales us with tales of their selfless crusading
while lining their pockets through insider trading.
Some judges are granted a lifetime appointment
which can’t help but end with a big disappointment
unless all those judges are more perfect versions,
untempted by power, and all its subversions.
Elections don’t work as the founders intended,
so our founding documents must be amended
to formally recognize no one possesses
the strength to withstand power’s loving caresses.
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Poet’s Note
In 1781, the Continental Congress adopted the Articles of Confederation, providing for a weak executive branch with almost all power held by the individual states. The fifth Article stated that “no person shall be capable of being a delegate for more than three years in any term of six years”. Our current Constitution replaced this document in 1789, but the concept of term limits did not survive despite having several founders argue very strongly for its inclusion. Thomas Jefferson and George Mason were the most ardent defenders of the concept with Mason saying that “nothing is so essential to the preservation of a Republican government as a periodic rotation.” James Madison argued that preserving experience was important and that having frequent elections would allow voters to remove those who had become corrupted by power. Although Madison could not have been more wrong about the efficacy of elections, his arguments prevailed.
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Warren Bonham is a private equity investor who lives in Southlake, Texas.
I wish term limits had been included for Congress when the 22nd Amendment passed in 1947 and was ratified in 1951. The reason it was not included was because the method used was Congressional passage and not mandated by the states as the alternative method. Congress chose not to limit their own members. As for the Supreme Court, we have been saved by holdovers from various administrations. Term limits for Congress makes so much sense. I would also like to see the House of Representative terms expanded to four years with both the House and Senate limited to 12 years. I suppose everybody has their own opinion about length of service and total years. The swamp does need to be cleared out on a regular basis. Thank you for calling out attention to the need for passage of some kind of term limit Constitutional Amendment.
That was helpful context for the passage of the 22nd Amendment. As you can tell, I’m not a fan of the current system, but we also need to guard against throwing babies out with the swampy bathwater, as you wisely point out.
Not only is this poem very well put together, but it highlights one of the major problems with our legislative branch. It does make me wonder, though, whether term limits alone could have prevented the rise of the entrenched bureaucratic class—the Deep State. Maybe it’s time for the states to take back control by sending representatives to Washington for short, two-year stints, backed by the full support—and watchful eyes—of the citizens who sent them.
Most of them barely work two or three days a week as it is. The least they could do is host a weekly, three-hour podcast reporting to the people who hired them—no staff-written fluff, no dodging—just a plainspoken explanation of what they’re doing and who they’re really doing it for.
Hey, this is the Information Age—let’s get some.
I have to disagree with the basic argument here.
The most important thing about any representative in Congress is whether he votes for our interests, in complete loyalty to them. If he does that, let him stay in office for fifty goddamned years!
How do you think the South maintained such powerful influence in Congress even after it lost the War Between the States? It just kept re-electing the same men over and over again, for year after year, so that they could build up huge seniority rights and keep on voting, as a bloc, for Southern interests. That’s why it was called “The Solid South,” and it prevented a great deal of stupid, revolutionary legislation from being passed.
Obsessing about term limits reveals a fixation on the mechanisms of democracy, rather than the much more important issue of PRESERVING OUR POLITICAL INTERESTS. If you have a guy in office who is preserving your interests, keep him there forever.
What scares me is that the political left understands this perfectly, while many of us on the right keep on making moralistic noises about term limits, as if that had any bearing on good government. The only thing that matters in politics is getting what we want, and the Solid South knew that once you had a loyal southerner in the House or Senate, your best bet was to re-elect him for decades to come.
You are correct about whether or not our elected officials represent the voting interests of the people and not themselves. That is the most important thing!
A lot of great points made here. As you can tell, I get sickened by the examples of corruption and the disproportionate impact of lobbyists compared to the little guys, whose only way to express their views is by showing up at the voting booth intermittently. Elected representatives probably start with the best of intentions but many seem to distance themselves from their constituents over time (while becoming unaccountably wealthy). Something needs to change but Congress will never vote to change itself, so my soapbox sermonizing amounts to nothing more than therapeutic venting.
You could be right, Joe. If someone’s loyal to his home state, I’ve got no problem keeping him in for decades. But too many lose their backbone once they get to D.C. Remember the Contract with America? Most of them ditched it fast.
RINOs, Neocons, lobbyists—it all adds up.
Term limits aren’t perfect, but until we can trust our reps to stay loyal, they might be the only way to keep things from going South… or is it North?
Ooohhh, a tangent! South implies downward. North implies coldness, retreat from relationships, alienation. West implies sunset and death. Does anyone use “go east” as a metaphor? If so, for what? Can movement in any direction be considered a bad thing?
Sometimes I wonder whether all government employees should be subject to election, recall, reelection, and possibly also term limits. Case in point: a librarian who posted on Bluesky that horrible things happen when members of the community stock their library with the books they want to share, so that every library across America is not dumbed down to the same level and horribly p.c. (Yes. Horrible things like coal miners being able to make conversation with MBA’s.)
Why the President of the US and the Governor of Virginia are subject to term limits, while other officials can hold the same offices practically for life, is unclear to me but it does seem to maintain a sort of balance. But the Constitution makes no provision for all those government employees, some of whom are hired solely on social connections, serve for life, and fail to serve their constituents.
Some states have term limits on their governors, but others do not. Such matters are decided by the state legislature in each case.
The only reason the U.S. presidency has term limits now (two terms) is because of a constitutional amendment that was passed in the late 1940s, in the wake of FDR’s unprecedented four terms in office. All previous presidents had followed George Washington’s example of only serving for two terms. When FDR broke this unspoken rule, many people were angry and decided that the constitution had to be amended to prevent it from happening again.
There are some ways to get around term limits. A governor’s political party can nominate some nonentity for governor, and if he is elected the ex-governor can simply pull the strings while the nonentity functions as a figurehead. George Wallace of Alabama pulled this off when he was prevented by term limitations from running again. He just got the Democrats to nominate his wife Lurleen for governor. She won the election, and George kept on running the state. It was a smart political move.
Interesting thought about limiting employment duration for employees as well as for those who are elected. Given how swampy things have become, as you can imagine, I’d be in favor of that so we can really drain the swamp. However, as satisfying as that would be for me personally, I also realize it would be impractical. Maybe someone can start a Department of Governmental Efficiency instead to limit the activity of our bureaucracy to the bare minimum that it was originally designed for?
“No one possesses/The strength to withstand power’s loving caresses.” Excellent conclusion to your well-measured argument, Warren. I am of two minds about the issue, as I had one Representative in Congress, who served the people well for 30 years, as persons of both parties acknowledged. The district was then re-drawn to favor a Representative of the opposite party and viewpoints. It seems equally impossible to displace that individual.
However, I am still more distressed by the apparently immovable bureaucratic class or Deep State. They are the ones who run the offices and implement policies, and they are capable of frustrating whatever goals elected representatives may have–however often there is a change of party in power!
Thanks to you, however, for bringing up the issue, because it deserves regular attention and discussion. As usual, your skill makes it easy to apply the mind. And I much appreciate your laying out the information to prove that term limits are NOT a new idea.
As expected, you’ve summarized the conundrum and its related frustrations very well. It’s a good thing that I’m unlikely to be made Emperor for a day. My frustration would result in decisions that would be immensely satisfying in the short term but that would undo whatever good is being produced by the current system.