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No Country For Old Men

By: pilgrim (Diary) | June 29th, 2010 at 02:21 PM |

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I don't think too many will argue with the idea that being in the US Senate has many perks and opportunities for each Senator to have control and the power to have people come to them if they want something. The one control that Sen. Byrd had and did not take advantage of is deciding what day he would retire from the US Senate. This diary is not intended to disparage or criticize Sen. Robert Byrd, and he is certainly not the only elected member of the Federal government that has failed at this control. If you look at a job, any job, there are four ways that you can leave it, but only one way that you have complete control over. You can be fired, you can reach a mandatory reirement age, you can die, or you can resign and retire. Only the last way is the one that an individual has complete control over.

Now elected members of Congress have only three ways, because unlike many private corporations they do not have a mandatory retirement age. The US Constitution requires a minimum age to become a member of the US House or US Senate, but it does not require a mandatory retirement age. An oversight? Or something like the 17th Amendment has changed the rules enough to make a mandatory retirement age more necessary now.

I do not favor term limits, and I will give you a couple of reasons why. One reason is that an unintended consequence of term limits is that a term limited senator is a lame duck senator for six years. I worry enough about the damage lame duck senators can do currently in two months of November and December without having to worry about the damage they can do with six years time to do it in. The second reason has to do with age. Why should a 30 year old US Senator be required to leave the Senate at the age of 48? If the person has good health, is not too old, and the voters in the state want this person as their Senator, then what is the greater good for term limits.

I do favor a mandatory retirement age limit, and I submit that before and after the Word became flesh there has been nobody who is perfect. I have below a list below of 11 current US Senators who are 75 years old or older, and 3 of them are considered safe in their 2010 election. The one thing about an individual senator choosing to resign and retire is that they can make this choice any time they want to. They do not have to wait until they are up for reelection. So I will watch to see if any of these choose this option between now and 2016.

Frank Lautenberg January 23, 1924

Daniel Inouye September 7, 1924

Daniel Akaka September 11, 1924

Dick Lugar April 4, 1932

Dianne Feinstein June 22, 1933

Chuck Grassley September 17, 1933

Orrin Hatch March 22, 1934

Richard Shelby May 6, 1934

Carl Levin June 28, 1934

Jim Inhofe November 17, 1934

Herb Kohl February 7, 1935

Cross-posted at The Minority Report

Tags: age requirements, Robert Byrd, term limits

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JadedByPolitics

instead of becoming a blathering idiot who is wheeled in for a vote. I find that whole process rather DISGUSTING. These Congresspeople crave POWER and they will hold on to it right up until the moment of death, SICKENING!

kowalski

Nobody would be a lame duck, nobody would stay for 35 years, and people would be better served.

ONE TERM. Senators and Representatives. If people liked what you did, they’ll vote for the person you recommend as carrying on your “legacy.”

Also, if you don’t have substantive ideas and respond with dexterity to your constituent’s concerns, you won’t have anything to stand on. And it will completely eliminate the incentive for politicians to carry on budgetary shenanigans that outlast their terms. One six year term for Senators and one four year term for Representatives, and that’s it.

You can never be a lame duck and you can also never overstay your welcome.

I think it would also encourage more people who don’t want to be professional politicans but who are nevertheless some of the best and brightest in our society, to run for national elected office.

I think we should amend the Constitution to prescribe SINGLE TERM limits on both houses of Congress.

kowalski

The single worst thing in the world that we have to deal with as a society is the nexus of professional politicians without term limits and a federal government that serves primarily to be a fountain of money for their friends and relatives in either party.

That is our Constitutional problem, and it has happened because we allowed the Federal government to grow far, far beyond what the Founders intended. If you’re going to try to pare that back, what you have to do is eliminate the money grabbing by placing a hard and fast term limit on Senators and Representatives at (1).

There is nothing they know that can’t be taught in 2 weeks. Trust me. It won’t lead to a loss of leadership quality and it won’t lead to people who “don’t know” what they’re doing. It will lead to people who DO know what they’re doing but who aren’t beholden to all of the baloney.

kowalski

It would eliminate the idea that “experience in Washington” is anything to be seriously valued. What “experience in Washington” means right now is:

“I have connections through which I direct money to my friends.”

Experience in Washington is the LAST thing this country needs right now.
http://theminorityreportblog.com Repair_Man_Jack

“The single worst thing in the world that we have to deal with as a society is the nexus of professional politicians without term limits and a federal government that serves primarily to be a fountain of money for their friends and relatives in either party”

And who will guard the guardians?

kowalski

They’ll have a lot harder time if they know their terms automatically end at the date of the next election – because it will bring people who want that seat to the fore. The “glory” of being elected will fade almost immediately, because by default there is absolutely no chance they can succeed themselves. It will shift the balance toward much more competetiveness for those seats and require new, prospective hires to prepare a lot harder than they do.

If you knew your job was limited to a single term, and you wanted it, I think you’d be more inclined to do the best possible job you could during that time. It would require people who want to aspire to office in Washington to work harder than they currently do.

A single term would have subtle effects on how they’re allowed to raise money and where that money would go. I think there would be far fewer people in the business of politics to build their own empires. We don’t want empires in Congress or the Senate – we want people who represent their districts, who represent their people, who are not beholden to the money that pours their way and the promise that they can endlessly disburse it.

It’s a big shake up, but I think the United States needs it. It’s a fundamental structural change, I know.
Joliphant

I am not going to say that this is a good idea for us but it has worked in the past and certainly is something to think about. .

Our problems in these matters are not new, and we do need find solutions.

eastbaylarry

Nobody here at RedState would miss 90% of the current representatives or senators, but what about those few percent that we like?

Term limits are not the answer, but a mandatory retirement age does make sense.

kowalski

It’s tough to imagine that we’d have to accept a new Senator or Representative every term, but I don’t see the problem being a lack of talent. I see the problem as a lack of people who want to RUN. I don’t think it’s that tough a problem to find someone in your own district who understands the people there — what I find pernicious is that not enough qualified people *do* run, because they are deterred by incumbency: usually, it takes a lot of money to unseat a popular incumbent.

This formula completely eliminates that problem. There is no incumbency. Instead, what you have in each district is a new face each time.

Don’t tell me we don’t have the people and brainpower in this country to find 500 odd people every four/six years who can do these jobs. It’s

pilgrim

How do you tell the 25 year US House member that at age 27 he has got to leave the House? How do you tell the 30 year old US Senate member that at age 36 he has got to leave the Senate? Our Founding Fathers were wise to put minimum age requirements into the US Constitution for membership in the US House and US Senate, but I doubt they would have agreed on the one term and your out that you propose.

kowalski

.

pilgrim

Your plan will allow every two years for 470 + persons of ANY AGE to become new members of the US House and US Senate. I don’t like that situation, and I doubt that I am alone on this.
kowalski

I admit there are some adjustments that need to be made. I would scrap the pensions, also.

I’m not trying to play games here: I really believe in the idea of 1 term congresspeople and senators. If we have to change the pension entitlements, that’s fine with me also.
kowalski

First of all, why would it allow people of any age? Theoretically it might but I don’t see why it couldn’t be written into the Amendment that it’s not allowed. 35 sounds about right to me. Maybe 30, but not younger.

So we have 1 term and 30-35 years old. I don’t think there would be much fundamental disagreement with those requirements.

Secondly, I don’t think anyone would vote for people younger than their middle years in any district in the country. Except maybe some districts in California, and that’s all to the good. In other words I don’t think that’s a real problem.
pilgrim

I think you are missing the part of my diary about the need to have a mandatory age as well as the existing Constitutional minimum age eligibility requirements. That is what I was talking about people of any age. I was talking about old farts.

We have had some really good people lately under the age of 30 from Illinois and Utah instead of California who have been elected to serve in the House. I just don’t share your concern with throwing 470 + people out of the Congress every two years. I think some of your concerns could also be addressed if the 17th amendment was repealed and the 435 seat cap of the US House was removed. We do need our best and brightest to represent individual constituents better in the House and represent state government concerns better in the Senate.
kowalski

There are more things that I have to flesh out here obviously.

But let’s for the sake of argument assume that we really did want Washington to be more responsive to people in their districts and less beholden to the “Inside the Beltway” disease that so many of us complain about, all the time, endlessly.

OK, we complain about it. Fat lot of good it does.

If we really want to do something about it, I don’t see any other way than changing the rules by which our Congresspeople are elected and hold office. Mine might not be the right ideas in the end, but when we think about it, unless we’re being intentionally stupid, we should consider what it would take to really make a change in the way things are done.

There are internal revolutions and external revolutions and it’s been a long time since our Constitution had a new Amendment. I think it’s time we passed one.

kowalski

1) If we’re going to try to do term limits, I can’t see any arguments that would allow term limits beyond (1) that wouldn’t also apply to (1). If you’re going to limit terms, you’re going to run into similar objections if you said (2). So why not just say (1)? In other words, if you said Senators and Congresspeople were limited to (2), the groaning would be just as loud, or louder.

2) Limiting terms to (1) would have a lot of beneficial effects: it would immediately invalidate the entire concept of a “lame duck” term, because you only have one bite at the apple to begin with. There can’t be any lame duck reps. or senators. They’re all lame ducks in a sense to begin with: which means they’ll have to really try to do something other than getting perpetually reelected.

3) If you’re going to try to do it, of course the rules governing it would be important at the beginning. We could put in age requirements. We could write the amendment such that perks and benefits of having been elected extend for a few years afterward or are amortized across the rest of that person’s life. We could even raise the salary of the lawmakers during the years they were there, to encourage them to do a better job. In fact I would do that: I would raise the salary of all elected Congressional representatives to, perhaps, a half a million dollars a year. But I would include in that *all* their household income and I would require that they cannot receive *any* gifts or other donations, from *any* source during that time. Then you take that base salary and you INDEX it to the economic well being of the rest of the country. If the country as a whole has a better GNP, during their terms, they get the full package. If the country underperforms, they get their pay cut — and don’t get to write it off.

Things like that.

kowalski

If you want to really know how to run a country according to performance, here’s what we should do, in other words:

1) Prevent anyone from having a local monopoly, ever.
2) Prevent them from taking advantage of the ability to create one.
3) At the same time, make sure that they can live comfortably BUT
4) Index their performance to the society they’re responsible for representing AND
5) Turn the people over as quickly as you can so that everyone gets a chance to understand how everything really works.

We have too many old secrets, too many old lies, too many old allegiances, too much spectatorship and very little real performance in Washington. If we want to change that, we have to start looking at managing it like a business instead of a free-for-all, which is what it is right now.

teresakoch

You didn’t see very many people living into their 70′s and 80′s, and the ones who did were usually in poor enough health by their late 50′s or early 60′s that they didn’t want to BE in Washington on a full-time basis.

How many of our current crop of Congresscritters do you figure would be up there right now if they were still working by candlelight, riding horseback on mostly unpaved roads in all kinds of weather, braving the extremes of heat and cold with no HVAC systems, and having to use outhouses when nature calls?

How about we go BACK to those days and see who we can get to serve their country? They’re bound to be better than the pampered poodles we have ensconced in D.C. at the present time!
http://www.examiner.com/x-1597-Charlotte-Law--Politics-Examiner Mike gamecock DeVine

Achance

It is bad enough as it is because few Members could actually pour pee out of a boot with instructions on the heel, so they just mouth what staffers tell them even when the Member has been around awhile. I’d buy three terms in the Senate and ten terms in the House, though.

kowalski

All Congresspeople and Senators get a certain number of staff members and a budget for that. Each and every one of them get the same number of people, chosen from whoever they wish. Start at a low number, like 10. No more than 50, and no special exemptions:

Then you enact a rule that if you want to be on a Committee you have to have a certain number of bonafide staffers. If you want to be on 3 committees and you don’t have enough staffers, tough nuts to you. Go back to being on 2.

The Federal Government is the thing that should be limited here, and it should be limited with a very very tight yoke. Including the staff.

Achance

though there probably too many. The issue is that all the skills and all the power will go to staffers, most of whom are Democrats at heart if not in fact; they are definitionally Capitol/Capital creatures and have drunk the KoolAid longest and deepest. Or you could impose a rule that at least the majority of your staffers must be recruited from your district and be domiciled there at the time of appointment. ‘Course that would give the lobbyists and other insiders a whole new bunch of rubes to prey on every few years.
kowalski

People from your district have to be on your staff. 75% to 100%, not less. If you have good lobbyists in your district, more power to you, but when it comes to who *REALLY* represents the people in your district, it should be people from your district, right down to the staffers you choose.

This isn’t a nustocrazy idea, nor would it be hard to implement. There might be a few far-flung places in the country that couldn’t manage it, but I can’t imagine there are many.

I would add another requirement: the staffers have to have lived in that district for at least 5 years prior to accompanying you to Washington.

Let’s have real versus hired representation in Washington. What we have now is anything but in a lot of cases.
kowalski

Real local representation in Congress should trump the freedom of Congresspeople from hiring from anywhere.

There’s going to be a lot of objection to this idea, but I don’t see how it’s that big a problem: what do Congressional staffers really do? Are you telling me there aren’t enough people in your district who can do those jobs?

I would allow *staffers* to carry over from one election to the next. They’re really the ones who do most of the work, anyway.
Achance

It just that the new members come to town and want the most prestigious staffers they can get, or the prettiest ones, so there’ll be resistance.

http://www.examiner.com/x-1597-Charlotte-Law--Politics-Examiner Mike gamecock DeVine

I think I favored them just a few months ago…Pil’ is that true) I think just like if unemploymemt comp is low enough I don’t mind it, your term limits are pretty long.

http://www.examiner.com/x-1597-Charlotte-Law--Politics-Examiner Mike gamecock DeVine

There are all kinds of relative advantages among the states, and the period of lameduckism would be generally averaged out over time. Besides under my plan, you know, the one we have had for 200+ years, we let the voters weigh all these factors and decide who to elect, in their states and let the chips fall.

Besides doesn’t lameduckism relate more to bargaining for pork? And doesn’t Byrd’s career of massive pork yet still one of the poorest states, show that the yea/nay votes on general econ policy are what matters most and even lame ducks can do that.
jennytheproudconservative

I agree with term limits, though not those numbers specifically.

Persons going into congress would have had to come from the private sector and know that they are going back to the private sector and would therefore vote for improving the private sector, not the government/welfare sector.

They would not be lame ducks because they would vote like a person who doesn’t want to/can’t be re-elected, can vote for their constituents.. They would not need to vote to please special interests who would support their campaign coffers for re-election or to build political favors for future political endeavors.

http://www.examiner.com/x-1597-Charlotte-Law--Politics-Examiner Mike gamecock DeVine

no on socialism just like un-lame ducks. Their lameness might effect bargaining for pork, but so what.

edintexas

They would be a “lame duck” from the day they were sworn in. I happen to like my Representative (Jeb Hensarling, TX-5th), and wouldn’t much care for people outside the district to tell us we can only have our Representative for 2 years.

Repeal Obamacare AND the 16th and 17th Amendments!

pilgrim

The craving for power by incumbents is evident in both political parties. My list has six Ds and 5 Rs. Maybe some of them will remember the spectacle of being wheeled in for a vote and retire with dignity.
http://www.examiner.com/x-1597-Charlotte-Law--Politics-Examiner Mike gamecock DeVine

I think Byrd is one of a large category of men whose work is his life and that had he retired early would probably have died soon thereafter. His self worth was wrapped up in his work, and I don’t think that is a bad thing.

There are also a large category of men that look forward to retirement.

I am against mandatory retirement age rules or term limits. Let the voters weigh all the factors and decide.

more later

pilgrim

I have not yet heard you criticize the founders who dared to write age limits for members of House and Senate into the Constitution. This is the reason that I do favor age limits. I think that the very very old become like children again. There has been no suggestion that we rewrite the Constitution to remove the language that keeps children from taking office.

http://www.examiner.com/x-1597-Charlotte-Law--Politics-Examiner Mike gamecock DeVine

They put no limit on how long you can serve. I am not against any and everything that can be characterized as a “limit” for the sake of opposing all limits! I also favor child labor laws!

Obviously, the minimum age requirement is to ensure a minimum level of experience before governing. I know of no ill effect of more experience.

I just don’t think the logic of my opposition to mandatory retirement age rules is refuted because I don’t also oppose the minimum age requirement.

I imagine that I might could be persuaded of circumstances where mandatory age requirements make sense, but doesn’t it seem that elected officials chosen by their voters would be the last category I would think of for that.

still thinking…

Michael Dugas

If EVER there was a poster child for a mandatory retirement age for politicians he’s it! The guy’s loony!

Even though I am an older guy and would like to think I could do what I want as long as I want I also think that politicians should have to live by the same rules as we do. I know crazy huh.
So I’d really like to see Pete Stark and a few others bagging groceries at the local Piggly Wiggly, or the like, at 65.
http://www.examiner.com/x-1597-Charlotte-Law--Politics-Examiner Mike gamecock DeVine

then turn your head.
pilgrim

If you think so, then we will just have to agree to disagree. The power and privilege and perks and seniority of some of these members who are older than 80 almost guarantees they will not have a serious opponent for reelection and will keep the seat until the day they die.

I wish voters voted out incumbents with greater frequency, but the statistics show that they do not. I am not yet reached the point that Kowalski has reached where the whole lot of them should only be there for one term, but I have sympathy for that point of view.

This is not about hating to look at old people, but this is about discussing whether or not we have the brightest and best 535 that we can get. The founders envisioned people serving for a while and then retiring, but today it’s all about getting a seat and keeping it until you die.
http://www.examiner.com/x-1597-Charlotte-Law--Politics-Examiner Mike gamecock DeVine

for all the other systems. We can’t age limit our way to Utopia. And all I am saying is that for some that have commented above the physically debilitated lack dignity. For me, I can imagine no greater dignity than for God’s purposes being met by those the world deems undignified. This is so even when I see Robert Byrd working until his last breath making a vote I disagree with. Many younger (best and brightest) reps voted like the old man. I do wish that Robert Byrd had been retired long a go, but only by the voters! I respect your opinion and even more the search for answers to end democrat-enabled great depressions.
Michael Dugas

Usually it’s the left putting words in peoples mouth. You catching that bug too?
“If you don’ t like to look at old people then turn your head.”

I re read my post several times because usually I understand what your talking about but in this case I NEVER said anything about not LIKING old people or desire that they disappear from view. I’m old, crippled and I’ve been told I put the “cur” in curmudgeon.

Robert Byrd has missed almost 50% of Congressional Votes this Congress alone. How is that doing his job with “dignity”? To me he was not meeting his responsibilities and representing his district properly. Retiring with dignity would have been my choice but that’s the thing about opinions, everyone has them and ………….you know.
http://www.examiner.com/x-1597-Charlotte-Law--Politics-Examiner Mike gamecock DeVine

He was a destroy America liberal from day one. Age got nothing to do with it.

JSobieski

nt
nessa

The provocation only increased as I read through the comments. my support for term limits stems from an often felt seething anger and disgust with an unspecified number of them and a resulting wish to just pitch them out and try again. Could we do worse just grabbing random strangers off the street? I think the results would be remarkably similar. How many random strangers that you don’t even notice on the street each day believe that Guam could capsize if it suddenly became overpopulated? Or that Arizona has suddenly become one of our northwestern states and no longer shares a border with Mexico? Is there one Alan Greyson in each 535 Americans? I sincerely hope not.

I’ll be damned if I can decide one way or the other right now. One thing we can agree on… Repeal the 17th. Then we could look at the issue and make an educated decision. With the 17th gone I don’t believe term limits would be the issue they are now.
kowalski

My idea for single term limits for both houses of Congress is quite radical, and I realize that whenever you propose any kind of change that radical you’re working with both the laws of inertia and the inevitability of unintended consequences.

My thinking though, at the most basic level, amounts to the idea that if you are going to run for a position at the national level, the incentive to try to stay there only so you can become an inextraicable potentate in your district should be eliminated.

It means some very hard and fast limits on how long they can stay under the law.

I’m looking at the positive aspects here: you give them their single term and because of that you expect them to have to really prepare for it and work hard (and be rewarded for it) while they’re there. But there can’t be any empires built in Congress. There won’t be any Kennedys and there won’t be any Byrds and there won’t be any [name your least favorite multiterm Congressperson here].

I see the building of those empires and the incredible intensification of power and influence in Washington as a result of a misunderstanding of our Founders intent to have a small, strong but LIMITED central government, and I think one of the best ways to do that in practice is to very starkly limit the amount of time people can spend there, building their empires.

Finally, I really believe this will lead to better, and more capable competition for those offices. I think one of the main reasons elected Congresscritters pursue pork and all other kinds of perks is so they can use it in their reelection campaigns. It’s probably the *primary* cause of that.

What we need is a Congress that can’t be so easily seduced by the practices of the status quo.

This proposed Amendment should be as short as possible – but it will probably have to be long enough to exclude the worst of the predictable consequences. However, it’s not crazy to say:

“If we said Congress could only be elected to 1 term and we paid everyone well and indexed their performance to the rest of the country, we would find that the quality of the prospective officeholder and their successors running for the same office would improve.”

I believe in turnover in these positions in part because I know that there is *NOTHING* that a Congressman or a Senator knows that cannot be taught in a week. Even all of the super-sensitive nuanced stuff isn’t anything that a person of slightly above-average intelligence can’t be schooled on in the space of a good vacation/retreat.

And boy would it empower the PEOPLE and the VOTERS in this country. No lame ducks, Illustrious Potentates, no looking over your shoulder because you didn’t vote for the same guy/gal, because it can’t happen.

Flagstaff

Then I just wrote a new diary instead. It mostly supports your ideas, from a different perspective.

techsan

What if the maximum age to be elected is tied to the Social Security retirement age? Or, the max age is reduced from age 75 for each trillion dollars of debt? Small changes…but could be motivational.

pilgrim

soljerblue

Richard Shelby is a Dem-turned-Rep during the Clinton years. He is, flat out, one of the consistently best gumshoe politicians I’ve ever covered in my 40-plus years as a journalist. He’s also, at 77, a cancer survivor. Although his American Conservative Union “score” is only a shade over 70 percent(Alabama’s other Senator, Jeff Sessions, is ACU-rated 95 percent and, in my opinion, far more representative of this dark-red state).

Now, to the rumor picked up in several places while active in this year’s primary election:

Shelby — a shoo-in for re-election in November — has discussed with retiring, term-limited Governor Bob Riley, a former MC, possibly stepping down during this next term, and letting a Republican governor(likely to succeed him) appoint Riley to the seat with enough time left to “take hold”, and retain the seat for succeeding terms. I emphasize that it’s JUST a rumor at this point. But it has a tantalizing logic to it, considering Shelby’s age among some other political realities in this state.

So I report it FWIW.

http://theminorityreportblog.com Repair_Man_Jack

I would fight that tooth and nail! Only Troy King or Porker Griffith would be worse…

RS

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