Instead of Term Limits

Calls for term limits for members of Congress and/or state legislature come up frequently due to annoyance at some very senior member, pushing something ridiculous or blocking something worthwhile. We pretty much all know the arguments for and against such term limits. The Founding Fathers never intended Congress to be a career, but any given constituency should have the right to vote for whomever they want to represent them.

What does it say about the people of Massachusetts if they cannot find anyone to be a better Senator than Ted Kennedy? What does it say about the people of north Omaha if they cannot find anyone to send to the Nebraska Unicameral Legislature better than Ernie Chambers? He's been there since 1970, twice as long as anyone else in the history of the state.

[Update: Nebraska passed term limits for its state senators in 2006, and Chambers was finally forced out January 6, 2009, after 38 years in office. But Kennedy is still on Capitol Hill.]

Any state could pass a law limiting the term of their own members of the U.S. House and Senate, and any throw-the-rascals-out group can boycott their state representative, but why would anyone want to limit their own representation if other constituencies were going to continue to send the same people year after year?

The problem is in the power of seniority. Experience in the legislative body naturally carries some de facto influence in that body; there is no reason it needs to carry de jure control as well. Yet nearly every legislative body in this country grants preference for committee chairmanships and other such positions of influence to the people that have been there the longest. But what does having been there forever prove? That the campaign deck is stacked in favor of the incumbent, who can communicate with the electorate at their expense, and can bring home a little bacon just before he has to face reelection? Or does it perhaps prove that sitting pretty on the public payroll is a lot easier than trying to advance a career or build a business in the real world?

Since term limits are so difficult to bring about, and since some validity can be ascribed to the argument that you don't want to be forced to retire a true talented statesman, I think we ought to abolish the legislative seniority system. Or, at the very least, restrict it severely. Let's say that we only have two grades on the seniority scale: anyone joining the body at or since the last general election is a freshman, and anyone else is a veteran. Veterans would include those who didn't have to face reelection in the last general election, such as a U.S. Senator in the third through sixth years of his first term. All freshmen are considered equals, and all veterans are considered equal, regardless of their relative terms of "service".

Positions of influence should then be granted to someone who has demonstrated knowledge and competency in the appropriate subject rather than someone who has just been hanging on in the certainty that he would eventually "deserve" the position.

Call me crazy, but somehow I think that Ted Kennedy's reelection chances would go down if the people of Massachusetts knew that the following January he would have exactly as much power as someone from Wyoming or Idaho with only two years experience.