Four fewer years.
I’ve been harboring a tirade about the Electoral College (a system which I believed to be outdated and problematic long before the 2000 election debacle), but discussing it deserves more effort than I have to spare this evening, and so I pose this question, instead: What is the value of allowing more than a single term for any President of the United States?
There would certainly be an upside or three if every President were limited to a single term. “Re-electability” would stop influencing policy decisions. Presidents would spend less time campaigning, and more time governing. There would be greater pressure on an elected President to “do what he/she came to do” in his/her short time at the helm. There’d be more flexibility for voters in the incumbent party, and less despair for voters in the defeated. The incumbent advantage would disappear. Influence of special interest groups would decrease.
I’ve heard a few (poor) arguments for NO term limits, but can find no compelling reason why a limit of two terms would be preferable to a limit of one. Presumably the authors of the 22nd Amendment had a good reason? Perhaps somebody can tell me what it was.
posted by Abram at 7:51 PM
3 Comments:
DG, I've emailed you a bus ticket to the Des Moines Wal-Mart. Please post your feelings about the Electoral College after your trip.
Aside from that, I'm with you: One term, six years.
The Electoral College makes sure those Wal-Mart shoppers are speaking for all Iowans. Brilliant.
Random thoughts:
1) The Electoral College does provide some equanimity to rural people. Without it, candidates could easily narrow their focus to some few 10-12 dense urban populations.
2) The Electoral College, as originally envisioned (excepting the sticky issue of pre-12th amendment electoral votes being cast for President and Vice-President without specificity) can be seen as a thing of some beauty inasmuch as it provided electors with greater latitude than the current model affords. In fact, the Constitution nowhere compels the states to even query their constituencies and I believe one of the original southern states didn’t even conduct a general election until the mid-1800s, choosing their electors through the state assembly instead. It should be noted that big-D Democracy was largely seen as mob-rule by the founding fathers.
3) “I’ve heard a few (poor) arguments for NO term limits, but can find no compelling reason why a limit of two terms would be preferable to a limit of one.”
Here is one strong argument against term limits pro forma: It undermines the ostensible faith between the electors and the elected. The threat to vote to unseat the incumbent is the mechanism through which representation is assured. What else has the elector but his future vote to secure representative integrity by the already elected? One might respond, “faith in humanity,” thusly eliciting a hearty guffaw from those assembled.
4) “Presumably the authors of the 22nd Amendment had a good reason? Perhaps somebody can tell me what it was.”
F.D.R.
I know Jefferson said something about the Presidency quickly becoming a “for life” proposition without some either constitutional or gentlemanly custom-of-the-office effort to fix its term.
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