Ted Cruz isn’t serious about term limits. He’s just looking for attention.
Quin Hillyer
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A constitutional amendment for term limits offered by Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) is nothing more than demagoguery masquerading as a serious proposal. Unless substantially altered, it merits oblivion.
The amendment would limit senators to just two six-year terms and House members to three two-year terms. It is the latter provision that shows this is a proposal meant for show rather than merit or for any real chance of passage. It also is a symptom of a bad disease infecting today’s Republican Party, whereby so-called conservatives now reject the supremely conservative insights that experience produces wisdom and promotes statesmanship. Most of the nation’s founders, from James Madison to Alexander Hamilton to Robert Livingston, considered and explicitly rejected term limits for that reason and others.
TED CRUZ WANTS TO REMOVE ‘ENTRENCHED POLITICIANS’
This is absolutely not to say the very idea of term limits is necessarily bad. Candidates who pledge to self-impose reasonable term limits are giving their district’s voters the chance to weigh in on the matter. And there are rational arguments for a national, blanket, outer limit, set by the Constitution, to avoid power becoming so entrenched via massive seniority that the system becomes sclerotic.
A mere six-year maximum for House members, though, isn’t a reasonable outer limit; it’s a recipe for chaos. The simple reality is that many newly elected people enter Congress with barely a clue about the legislative process, much less how Congress intersects with administrative agencies. Sometimes, the sheer ignorance of new members is staggering. By so radically attenuating the experience base of House members, a six-year limit will leave Congress even more in the thrall of permanent, unelected staff who do know how the systems work. Worse, it shifts even more power to executive agencies, to the bureaucrats with superabundant job protections even if they perform badly, who already wield authority that is virtually unaccountable.
Moreover, even those newly elected House members who do arrive with a solid understanding of the system can lack many of the interpersonal skills required for fashioning majorities for individual bills from among 435 colleagues representing wildly disparate districts and interests.
Much of the work of legislating is built on trust, and trust is a commodity that, especially among ambitious, self-interested, and mutually suspicious politicians, must be forged through repeated interactions and proof of reliability. With a mere three-term limit, many of those bonds of trust will barely have been established before they can do any good.
As an old Latin saying expresses it, “discimus agere agendo” — we “learn to do by doing.”
Term limits as strict as Cruz proposes also would exacerbate the already terrible trend of lawmakers preening for cameras and promoting cheap social-media clickbait. If someone is going to lose his job in six years no matter what, there’s no reward in being a careful legislative craftsman. Instead, the incentive is to make as big a public splash as possible, as quickly and even rashly as possible, to set oneself up for whatever job comes next.
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For these reasons and many more, people who are serious about term limits, rather than showboating, propose limits somewhere between five and nine terms (10 and 18 years). The goal of serious people is to balance the perceived need for new blood with the obvious benefits of experience and of the expertise that comes from practice.
Cruz knows all this. He also knows there is no conceivable way that anywhere near two-thirds of either chamber of Congress will support a mere three-term limit. Thus, his proposed amendment is meant for bumper stickers and TV ads, not actual implementation. It is cynical and unworthy of Cruz’s public office.