These are politicians who have adopted Vladimir Putin's method of dealing with term limits. What they do is serve in the state house of representatives until they hit the term limits. Then they shift over and run for the state senate and they serve there, well, until they hit the term limits. Then it's back to the house and the cycle repeats itself.[1],[2]
In a way, it shows the anti-democratic aspect of term limits, for the Little Putins are popular enough with the voters to be returned to office time and again. The only thing that term limits do is somewhat reduce the power of those politicians as they cannot amass seniority. But they can, in a way, for they are the ones who have the experience to master the rules and procedure of their legislative body. Then they can exert outsized influence.
What it comes down to is that term limits are an anti-choice provision, a belief that the voters don't know what they are doing. Which is probably true, since term limits are often enacted by referendum.
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[1] Or they serve a term in a local job, such as Killer of Dogs, until they can run again for the state house. Unless they end up serving a term in the big house.
[2] If the politicians have lots of money, they can buy enough influence to override term limits, as Billionaire Mike did.
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Tuesday, June 12, 2012
2 comments:
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I'd like to see a term-limit provision that not only restricts the number of terms in a given office one may serve, but imposes a 'cap' on the continuous holding of any elected office. For example, let's have term limits for House and/or Senate, plus a clause that says after one's served a maximum of (say) eight years in elected office, one must stand down at the end of one's current term and not run for any elected office until an equal period of eight years has elapsed.
ReplyDeleteI can't think of a better way to get rid of "professional politicians". (Well, that's not entirely correct. I can think of several better ways, but none of them are legal or moral!)
Yeah, but, but....
ReplyDeleteIf they can't serve in any public office, they become lobbyists and do really bad damage.
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