Term limits

[Jonathan Buhacoff]

Every elected and appointed position in government must have a term limit.

In the Executive Branch of the United States Government, the president’s term limit has been two 4-year terms, which means that a person can be president for 8 consecutive years. The first problem with this situation is that, in practice, the last year of a first-time president’s term is spent campaigning for re-election which is a huge distraction from the job the president was elected to do. The second problem is that when a president runs for re-election, is at that time the president may have the means, the motive, and the opportunity to “rig” or interfere with the election in some way that would be advantageous to getting re-elected. Even if a president doesn’t act unfairly, the mere possibility that the president did act and it just hasn’t been discovered yet, and the history of political accusations of rigged elections around the world, are enough justify a constraint on this activity in a society that values the peaceful transfer of power. The same situation applies to state governors and mayors.

Therefore, the constitution of each level of government should clearly state that the no elected official in the executive branch shall serve consecutive terms.

Whenever the same people are involved in running an operation for a long time, there is a concern that some of them might be corrupt because the longer they stay in the position, the more time they have to cover up misdeeds or abuse the position. Therefore, the constitution of each level of government should clearly state that no elected official in the executive branch shall serve more than a cumulative total of 10 years in the same office.

For the President, this means a maximum of two 4 or 5 year non-consecutive terms. Any time served as acting president, for example if the person was the vice president when the elected president died or became incapacitated, should not count towards the cumulative limit but does count towards consecutive terms meaning the acting president oversees the next election but cannot be a candidate, but could still run for and get elected twice in the future for non-consecutive terms.

Appointed officials in the executive branch should also have term limits. Although they don’t have the distraction of a campaign for re-election, the longer someone is in office the more opportunities there are for corruption. The constitution of each level of government should place a limit on cumulative service of appointed officials in the same position, such as 10 years.

Elected officials in the Legislative Branch don’t pose the same direct threat to elections that officials in the executive branch do, but the risk of corruption with continuing service is still there. The constitution of each level of government should place a limit on the cumulative service of elected legislators for each position, such as 10 years, and a higher limit on the lifetime cumulative service in the Legislative Branch, such as 15 years or 20 years.

Appointed officials in the Judicial Branch don’t pose a direct threat to elections, but should also have term limits to defend against political appointments that last far beyond the majority in the legislature that appointed them. Instead of a lifetime appointment, the judges should be limited, for example to 10 or 15 year terms.

The elected official in the Investigate Branch has an opportunity to directly interfere with elections by opening sham investigations into political opponents and leaking information or disinformation about them. Therefore the term should be limited, for example a 4-year or 5-year term.

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