Term Limits
America has a democratic system which relies heavily on the elected officials to carry out the aims of the public. As the representatives¡¯ roles grow heavier the issue regarding the term they could serve drew more attention. The majority of the public is overwhelmingly in favor of posing a congressional reform of term limits, ¡°Nearly 80 percent wanted to limit the number of terms for members of Congress to 16 percent that opposed the idea¡± (Hibbing and Theiss-Morse 74). The people believed that the lack of term limit made their representatives able to stay in Washington much longer than they would preferred. They stated that this very fact of people staying in power too long would endanger America¡¯s democratic institution by forging an aristocratic society. The opposition of this reform, however, argued that these representatives were elected by the people they are representing. If the majority of the people believed that he or she needs to be removed, they would have done so without the help of the term limit. The lack of term limit, according their view, did not threaten the democracy in the United States; quite contrary, it enabled the people to entrust their rights in the person they had the greatest confidence of
voicing their opinions. This is a true reflection of the public opinion. They stated that if the public wants to elect that person than the democratic government has no right to deny their wish. The argument of the term limit then centers on the issue of whether it would promote democracy or hinder it. Its supporter also stated that term limit is the tradition of American politics. It was stated in the Article of Confederation but was neglected to be put in the Constitution (Coyne and Fund 45). The early American politicians, such as Thomas Jefferson, and James Madison, all followed the tradition of serving under a term limit of two or three. But as the government grew in size, careerists were able to dominate American political life. They disregarded the tradition in pursuit of their own interests. So it is necessary for the term limit to become the federal law or amendment to the Constitution to return America to the pure democracy its Founding Father intended to create (Coyne 46). They also argued that the term limit obstructed the democratic practices in the United States by restricting who could run for the public office (Feinberg 19). There is no need to such law in the democratic America. The people would replace any ¡°servant¡± of them when they see a need. They have enough power to do that without the aid of a term limit. Instead, it would force the people to choose someone inferior merely because the one whom they trust and has the ability had served more than the term limit allowed (SYWK). How could that be called ¡°Democracy¡± if the people could not even elect the representatives they wanted? It is more of the case when the reason for such is neither lack of ability nor personal impurity but a law that mandated the retirement of the exemplary officials (Feinberg 31). They also argued that the possibility of reelection is what compels politicians to serve the people. If term limits are instituted, there will be little incentive for elected officials to perform well in their last term (SYWK). The supporter of the reform argued that by setting the ceiling of the maximum of years a person can serve in a position would bring higher efficiency into our government system and further promote the idea of democracy handed down to us by the Founding Fathers. The majority supported the term limit should be about six years (Coyne and Fund 25). The reason the proposal of term limit received such widespread support on the national level is because of the tradition Americans had. A scandal started the movement for term limit, the scandal of Jim Wright, the once powerful H
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Approximate Word count = 1760
Approximate Pages = 7 (250 words per page double spaced)
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