Bonded term limits?
Submitted by James on Mon, 12/07/2009 - 10:07am
This novel idea from John Skvarla is making the rounds on the intertubes.
Skvarla founded last spring the Alliance for Bonded Term Limits, which is trying to recruit candidates nationwide to sign legal documents pledging to give large amounts of their personal money to charity if they serve more time in Congress or a legislature than they promise.
The underlying premise is simple. Politicians should be thought of as self-interested whores. Now it's just a matter of negotiating the price.
- James's blog
- 596 reads
Would love to hear your thoughts
http://www.bondedtermlimits.org/
So many pros and cons
and so little time :).
I am a con kind of guy on this one, actually. I guess my biggest reason is that if an elected official knows that his "term" is short or about to end, he/she would not have to worry about voting on issues or presenting the wishes of the constituents that put him/her in office in the first place. So, we could be electing people that will not have to worry about the judgement of the people in their district or state.
This one has certainly been bantered around through the years, I am sure. It will be interesting to get the "pulse" here on BlueNC.
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“Discussion is an exchange of knowledge; argument is an exchange of ignorance" __ Robert Quillen
I see the opposite
Maybe if an official knows their term is up they might vote to do the right thing and not worry about getting re-elected or gaining/losing power.
I see that point also, of course
This is why I said there so many pros and cons on the issue of term limits. Has it ever been tried in any venue in the U.S.? It would be interesting to know and if so see how that turned out.
No argument SPlib on this one. I think this is one of those "navel" things as in "everybody has one" (opinions).
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“Discussion is an exchange of knowledge; argument is an exchange of ignorance" __ Robert Quillen
Whores and hypocrites?
Well, at least one of the two.
Regarding the latter accusation, this current member of the North Carolina Senate pledged term limits for herself back in the 1990s.
Look where she is now!
She spent seven terms in the NC House, but that wasn't enough. She wanted to be in the NC Senate too.
As for the former accusation (whore), I'll let the NC Family Policy Council determine whether her divorce follows some arcane version of biblical law (Aramaic translation or the KJV -- you get to pick), and therefore whether she is still married in the eyes of Talibangelicals.
Would MSM reporters (or ultra reactionary think tanks) list former term limit pledge takers who are still in office, if they even took the time to research them?
Don't hold your breath.
Still don't like term limits, bonded or not
The electoral process needs some serious adjustment, but placing artificial limits on who can or cannot run for a particular office is undemocratic. If the influence of money is lessened and the electoral season shortened then voters should be able able to cast their ballots more intelligently, thereby eliminating the riff-raff via the ballot box.
Fix the system and let the people decide. If a district gets a good representative, why should he/she be forced to retire after x terms?
Environmental Defense Fund
I don't think anyone is forcing anything
Plenty of politicians, like Sue Myrick, use the promise of self-limited terms as a ploy to sucker citizens into voting for them. This, as I understand it, is a scheme to "help" elected officials keep their word.
So then her constituents are either uncaring
as to her term limit promise or are comfortable having a selfserving liar represent them. So either it's not a big deal or they are getting what they deserve.
Environmental Defense Fund