Maybe nobody should take what North Carolina Gov. Bev Perdue said seriously.
I admit, it's very hard to believe she could have meant what she said.
For those of you who might have missed it, the honorable Democratic governor of North Carolina addressed a recent Rotary Club in Cary, N.C. and, when asked about fixing the economy, said: "You have to have more ability from Congress, I think, to work together and to get over the partisan bickering and focus on fixing things. I think we ought to suspend, perhaps, elections for Congress for two years and just tell them we won't hold it against them, whatever decisions they make, to just let them help this country recover. I really hope that someone can agree with me on that. The one good thing about Raleigh is that for so many years we worked across party lines. It's a little bit more contentious now but it's not impossible to try to do what's right in this state. You want people who don't worry about the next election."
Perdue said she was joking, and I believe her. After all, it's such an outrageous statment that it's almost impossible to take seriously - although I'm also sure a lot of politicians (Democrats AND Republicans) who would actually be happy to go along with the idea if they were really being honest. Staying elected has become as important as getting elected to these people.
Generally speaking (and I say "generally" because the last statistics I saw were from the 1990s), something like 90 percent of all incumbents get re-elected. After the first re-election (meaning after being sent to Congress for a second time), about the only way an incumbent, regardless of party, failed to return to office again was if either he or she decided to retire or decided to take a chance on running for a different office or got caught with their pants down.
Literally.
That's the kind of congressional consistency and solidarity that has gotten this country into the mess we're in, and Gov. Perdue's point - even if made jokingly, the point is the same - is that we should leave Congress alone to let them "work out the problem?"
Preposterous. Ridiculous. Outrageous.
It's almost like taxation without representation, because the people who have been up there "representing'' us for so long use the power of their office to overwhelm opposition and do whatever it takes to stay in office.
Now, I am fully aware that politicians would say they have term limits; that they face the possibility of an imposed term limit in every election; that if the people want them out of office, they can vote them out.
But when the point of reaching Congress is to stay in Congress, politicians build alliances and do things to keep their 'base' of voters in line.
The truth is, we need term limits. If politicians go into office knowing they only have a set amount of time to get things done and then they go home, back to business, they can actually be "citizen statesmen."
Most governorships are limited to two terms. The presidency is limited to two terms. In essence, every four-to-eight years we have peaceful revolutions in this country as the power transfers from one "head of state" to another. And it's been a pretty successful system.
So why shouldn't it work in Congress?
Here is what I propose, and I admit this idea is hardly original with me: 12 year term limits. That's three elections for Senators (four year terms) and six elections for Representatives (two year terms). It gives them enough time to understand the way the system works, to get things done, and it also keeps their time in office relatively balanced. It allows them to go beyond one presidents' potential maximum time in office so they can continue to operate outside that presidents' influence (they'll either be in office before the president takes office or stay in office beyond the presidents' term).
Anything shorter and what you'd have is a string of elected officials who arrive in Washington, DC, and have to rely on pre-existing staffers and bureaucrats who, even now, tend to remain while politicians come and go.
Twelve year terms allows for new blood to be constantly introduced into the system, yet keeps the institutional knowledge that is necessary to keep the government being ground to a halt.
Gov. Perdue was dead wrong. We don't need to suddenly trust our elected officials to fix the problem. After all, our whole system of government was built on a sense of mistrust - checks and balances, Congress making laws, Presidents signing or vetoing, Supreme Court Justices ruling on the Constitutionality of those laws.
Our founding fathers recognized the old Calvinistic concept of the basic depravity of man, that power corrupts, and everyone entrusted with the public trust needs careful watching.
Calvin - and the founders - understood it's a lot easier for an honorable man to do the right thing when he knows he's being watched.
Suspend elections?
Perdue is fortunate we're not like some countries that have elections whenever there is a loss of confidence in what the ruling party has done. If that were the case, I have a feeling we wouldn't be waiting until Nov. 2012 for a national referendum
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