Term Limits

There are very few people who could convince me that there is not a need for term limits in both bodies of our Legislative branch of Government. The U.S. Constitution is silent on this issue, which leads me to think that they were not intended to have a say in this…leaving it to the individual states to determine additional qualifications.

Term limits were instituted for the Articles of Confederation, which preceded the Constitution by around six years and was this countries first governing document, but it wasn’t written into the Constitution.

Existing Longevity

My informal investigation showed the following U.S House and Senate members have exceeded 40 years of service, which is longer than I have been alive…

Senate- Robert Byrd (49 years) and Ted Kennedy (46)

House- John Dingell (54), Robert Conyers (44) and David Obey (40)

The list of 30 and 20 year members are really too long to list, but it is pretty easy to find if you look (Senate and House).

Constitution

This was a issue debated during the framing of the constitution and the process that both of these Houses were selected changed from appointment from the state elected legislations to an actual vote in 1919.

This issue with term limits is that there is no Constitutional basis for enacting them, unless Congress imposes it on itself…not likely to happen.

Article 1, Sections 2 and 3 of the U.S. Constitution establish that Representatives serve two-year terms and Senator serve six-year terms and no limit on these terms was put into place. It would take another Amendment (ratified by 2/3 of the states) to make this a part of the Constitution. This is not a like scenario and was even tried (and defeated) in 1995 and in 1997.

Imposing these term limits would then be put on the responsibility of each state to accomplish.

State Issue?

The states would be less likely to remove a House or Senate member who held a chairmanship or seat on the powerful Finance, Appropriation and Armed Services committees because their state would lose power/money/projects that would come to their state if their member we no longer there.

Twenty-three states voted, and passed, term limits for U.S. House and Senate members in the early 1990s only the have the U.S Supreme Court rule that the states could not impose these restrictions, nullifying the wishes of the people to impose such limitations. I am sure it exists, but I couldn’t find an instance of the people voting against term limits. The people know that career politician are not a good idea…the majority of them are out of touch with “the people”, spend the majority of their time out of the state and seem to be setting them selves up for the next term, than effectively legislating.

The states still have the “power” to impose limits by voting their career politicians out of office if they desire. The people are allowed to vote every two or six years on each seat.

I would lean toward each state having the ultimate authority on who it sends to the House and Senate. Prior to 1919 it was up to the individual state legislations to select members to the Senate. The Seventeenth Amendment amended Article 1, Section 3 to allow for Senators to be elected by the people instead of being appointed by the state.

I am a little curious as to why the Supreme Court overturned the wishes of the twenty-three states to impose their own term limits…this topic will be up for future research and possibly debate at a later time.

Analysis of Article 1

The real meat of Article 1 lies in Sections 1, 7, 8, 9 and 10.

I have posted Article 1 as a separate page.

This Article authorized both the House and the Senate and set them as THE legislative branch of government.  The qualifications of each branch (age, residence and citizenship), length of terms, method of selection and general rules are covered in Sections 1-6.

By definition, this branch of the government is the only one able to make laws.

Section 7 establishes how laws are made, mentions the need for the President to sign bills into laws and outlines veto procedures.

Section 8 is where the rubber meets the road.   This section determines what the legislative branch CAN do.  Included is the ability to levy and collect taxes, borrow money, regulate commerce, coin money, set standards for weights and measures, establish Post Offices and roads, establish copyrights for sciences and arts, define laws and punish for offenses against the laws of nations and declare war.  Also included in these powers are organizing and establishing and Army and Navy.

The broadest power this branch was given was…“To make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers, and all other Powers vested by this Constitution in the Government of the United States, or in any Department or Officer thereof.”

Section 9 is the attempt to limit the powers of these bodies, this sections seems to be ignored these days.   I am going to have to look into this one.

Section 10 limits the states on items such as dealing with foreign nations, coining money and imposing duties and tariffs.

In looking at this, Section 9 really jumps out at me regarding the collection and use of taxes.   This is one the Libertarians must have a field day with.

As I said in other pages and posts, I am not a Constitutional Scholar.   I was educated in the government schools by government teachers (not past high school).  I am somewhat embarrassed by my lack of specific knowledge of the Constitution and these two hours of study of the ten sections of Article 1 have enlightened me greatly.  I will spend the rest of the week researching some issues with these sections as well bringing to light anything else I discover or question.