We Have Term Limits. They’re Called Elections.
Term limits are one of those ideas that seems to just make sense. After all, politicians are just in it for the money, and obviously without term limits they’ll never leave office and they’ll just suckle from the taxpayer teat until they die.
But term limits are a superficial treatment that ignores the core problem. It’s like trying to fix roads by forcing people to change their tires more often.
No one can be blamed for buying into this idea. On the surface it seems like a great way to prevent one politician from holding power for too long and creating a political career out of a single office.
West Virginia senator & majority whip Ryan Weld is the latest to trod out this bad idea, for a select set of offices in West Virginia.
The Intelligencer/ Wheeling News-Register editorial board gushed for the idea in the March 8th edition of the paper:
“Sen. Ryan Weld is absolutely right that West Virginia needs to get into the business of good governance. A measure the Republican from Brooke County is sponsoring to limit the number of terms the state’s constitutional officers can hold office — Senate Joint Resolution 11 — is a solid step in that direction.
The constitutional offices — secretary of state, auditor, treasurer, attorney general and agriculture — currently have no limits on the number of terms an elected representative can serve. This has led to decades-long bureaucratic tenures for some of those holding these offices.”
Weld’s resolution appears noble in at least one way: his own party holds all of the offices that he proposes limiting — and if it goes into effect, it will prevent at least one (Patrick Morrissey) from running for re-election. That’s the only tip of my hat I can give here though.
Here’s why it’s all around a bad idea, noble as it may seem.
First, this proposal is unnecessary because we already have term limits. They are called elections.
The problem with our elections is not that one candidate is always guaranteed to win. On the candidate side, the major problem with our elections is that we have established too many barriers for good candidates to enter and to be serious challengers unless they have a massive war chest of political donations.
Second, this proposal would entrench partisan politics and two-party power.
Sen. Weld’s proposal wouldn’t do anything about fixing our elections — it would only transfer more power to party machines and wealthy influencers who can hand pick a candidate’s successor. Hypothetically, Ryan Weld could just have his eyes on Patrick Morrissey’s job and this could just be a way to force Morrissey into retirement.
People who are upset at the two-party system should be upset about this resolution, as it would re-enforce the power of parties in our state government, because it would allow the parties and their partisan paymasters to seize long-term control over these offices while churning through manipulatable sock-puppet candidates every twelve years. And if twelve years seems like a long time and that using the word “churn” is dramatic — I’d argue that’s because you’re a human and not a political party.
Third, it ensures that lobbyists always have an upper hand on our politicians.
Every twelve years, lobbyists and lobbying firms will be able to watch the last officeholder move out, and watch the new officeholder move in.
This creates a strong incentive for lobbyists to compete to hire politicians once their term is up. Whatever firm hired the politician who last warmed these seats would have tremendous advantage. Ever hear of “revolving door politics”? Weld’s resolution would automate the revolving door to a twelve year cycle at its longest.
As for the incoming officeholders, lobbyists would be able to help decorate their offices — and organize their priorities for the next twelve years, because the lobbyists would be the ones who know how things were left at the end of the last officeholders term. This is already a problem in our politics, and Weld’s resolution would make it worse.
Fourth, it sidelines your vote in favor of an arbitrary limit.
This proposal is fundamentally anti-democratic, and not even republican. It denies voters the ability to elect a popular politician for as long as a politician and voters desire.
“But,” some object, “the president is term limited — why are these state offices any different?”
Presidents weren’t term limited until the mid-20th century when the 22nd Amendment was ratified. Until then it was just sort of tradition. George Washington wasn’t term limited — he decided not to run for a third term, and it set a soft precedent.
As a country, we made twelve major amendments to the U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights before we included term limits for the president. And we’ve never needed to term limit a president since we ratified the 22nd Amendment. Since the passage of the 22nd Amendment, only one president seemed to seriously talk about a third term. He didn’t even get a second term.
We need to foster a sense that elections matter. Weld’s resolution does the opposite, because a citizen can say to themselves, “neither party cares about me, my vote doesn’t matter, and whether I like the current officeholder or not, he will be forced out in a few years anyway.”
Fifth, this proposal is hypocritical.
The senate is not term limited, so Ryan Weld himself has no legally-set term limits, and he doesn’t propose that we establish any. How wonderfully “limits for thee, but not for me”!
Finally, this proposal treats one symptom of a systemic disease.
We don’t need to force popular politicians out of office with arbitrary term limits. What we need to do is improve the term limits we already have: elections.
I’m not saying that our current electoral system is working for West Virginians. Bad politicians who make careers out of holding office are symptomatic of an electoral system that no longer works for most West Virginians.
Term limiting these offices would do nothing address the cause of our broken electoral politics or bad governance. It’s like proposing we address our crumbling roads by mandating that people change their tires more frequently.
To foster better governance, we need to foster more competitive elections between better candidates.
Rather than change our politician tires more frequently, we need to fix our electoral roads so that we can get to our destination of a West Virginian government that works for West Virginians.
We need to lower the barriers to run for office so that we get better candidates every cycle. That means we need campaign finance reform, and publicly funded elections that would allow candidates to run competitive campaigns regardless of how much money they have or they can raise.
We need to make it easier for West Virginians to vote, and that means automatic voter registration, no-excuse absentee voting, and a robust mail-in voting system.
We need ranked choice voting to allow third-party candidates to have a fighting chance in our elections, and so voters are free from choosing simply D or R for every office in every election.
We need limits on lobbyist influence and laws that criminalize revolving door politics while dramatically limiting the access that lobbyists have to our elected officials — and elevating the access that citizens have.
These are not exhaustive solutions, but these are solutions that would foster competitive elections, open the landscape of political ideas, and foster a sense that elections matter. This, in turn, promotes good governance and accountability for politicians.
