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Originally Posted by Guest
We have term limits. it's called "voting'.
And the only thing that will stop this lunacy is to relitigate the Supreme Court decision of Citizen's United, which gave corporations the power to shovel unlimited dark money into the pockets of politicians. And that decision, fyi, was from the conservative "hero" Scalia, and why Republicans were so desperate to keep the Court conservative that they held Scalia's position unfilled for over a year (in defiance of their Constitutionally mandated duty). Ginsberg said we now have "the best democracy money can buy."
Five years after Citizens United ruling, big money reigns - LA Times |
You have to understand the games and trickery employed by members of Congress to get you to vote for them. Most people don't have the time nor inclination to follow every action taken by Congress. One of the biggest problems is that your Congressman and Senator will brag about all the money he takes hoke to your state or district. Since most people are only concerned about themselves and their neighborhood, they think that their guy is great. What most people don't see is all of the additional spending that is done so that your guy can bring home the bacon to you. What a lot of people also don't realize is that Congress tries to maximize their income by taking more and more from the states and then controlling how it is spent by mandates. Since they take out their costs, less money goes back to the states than if they just left it alone and let the states handle state issues.
Another great device is hearings and investigations which are not the job of Congress. These cost billions of dollars and rarely ever accomplish anything other than to get the member's names and faces on television.
Congress will do almost anything to avoid legislating, which it really their only job. Everytime that they vote on something, they risk alienating some of their constituency. Even when they do vote, those votes may be pre-approved by the party leadership. A prime example is this latest tax reform bill. Rep Peter King and a few others that live in states with high state taxes voted no on the bill. That was OK with the party leaders because they knew that if they voted for the bill it might hurt their re-election chances. They also knew that they had more than enough votes to pass it so those few votes weren't necessary.
The Senate had to such luxury every Republican had to be on board and if they weren't John McCain would have been wheeled in from his deathbed to vote.
Often a member will be able to vote for or against a bill in its initial stages which will save him from voting on the final bill.
It's all a game and a show. No one really can be sure about any of these people. The only thing that we really know about them is which party they belong to which gives you an idea if their basic philosophy somewhat aligns with yours.
Term limits by voting is a nice idea, but it's naive to think that it will work. The number one job of people in Congress is to get themselves re-elected. And they don't do it by doing the job they were sent to do.