dstieger wrote:Why don't we ever hear serious talk about term limts?
Interesting article in the paper yesterday about succession....Orrin Hatch is third in line to become president if something happened to Trump, Pence and Ryan. Unlikely as that may be, Hatch is 84 years old and wasn't even elected to be Senate Pro-Tem...he's simply 'it' by virtue of the fact that he's been a Senator for 41 years!
Looking at he and the other 'top 3' on the judiciary committee that's so much in the news right now (along with Feinstein, Leahy and Grassley), their average time in office is 37 years and average age is 83!
No doubt, there's plenty of octogenarians who are quite capable of lots of things, but as a rule, I don't want my representatives in same office for 37 years. No way that we're getting the best representation by this being the norm, in my opinion.
Over the years, this subject comes up, and everyone mostly agrees...as long a it's someone else's senator/rep!
They go back and nominate their local, then vote him/her back in. And then whine about Congress.
I agree with you, 4 decades gets stale. But one of the problems that I see is loss of seniority that affects committees etc.
I think if that system were to be revamped locals would have less excuse to keep pulling the same lever.
Locally, a surprise upset happened in the primaries. Mike Capuano (sp), a very liberal Democrat with years in Washington was knocked off by an equally liberal Democrat woman...on the surface it looks like change for a quarter but under the current set up rewarding longevity, this may have ramifications for the towns affected by doing the noble thing...and that isn't right.
