[tatrajim]

Gives power to the permanent committee staff members and lobbyists who have institutional memory and social networks. No legislator could possibly understand all the nuances of policy with such short limits. Four terms, say, as a Senator and eight as a House member would be more practical.

[labcomputer]

Exactly this. California has enacted term limits and it hasn’t gone well.

Lobbyists run everything because the politicians are all too new. It also completely disincentivizes long-term thinking because the system guarantees they will be out of office by the time the chickens come home to roost.

[duped]

I heard an interview from a state rep in Florida complaining about term limits, something like "your first term is like your Freshman year, you don't know anything, your second is like your Sophomore year, etc" and her point was that you can't get anything done without being able to serve at least 6 years or so.

I think that's kind of bogus. If you can't figure out how to be an effective politician in your first term then you don't deserve to be elected for a second!

[MattGrommes]

I heard AOC talk about this and it does make sense. There's just a lot to learn about how things actually get done and only so much time in the day. It's not as simple as "Write bill, pass bill, job done". You have to figure out who are the people who actually have power in an agency, what their priorities are, how to word the bills so they will actually achieve what you want, etc. There's a lot to it.

The podcast with AOC: https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/the-power-broker-04-r...

[rswail]

The long term thinking is how to get into their longer term lobbying career.

Term limits make sense for POTUS. There should be regular changes in Executive management of any organization.

But not the Legislative or Judicial branch. Age limits (minimum and maximum) avoid the "lobbyist capture" issue.

[Clubber]

I disagree with POTUS term limits. If the citizenry want someone to stay in office, like we did for FDR, we shouldn't be forced to pick someone else.

Furthermore, having term limits on just one branch of government decreases the power of that branch without decreasing the power of the other branches creating a new balance of power (or imbalance).

Imagine having to vote for someone other than FDR in the 1940 election. Germany had swallowed most of Europe that year. I couldn't imagine being forced to vote for President Wendell Willkie or James Farley to lead us into war because the guy I want can't serve due to term limits.

https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/german-inv...

He won that election by a landslide.

Roosevelt won the 1940 election with 55% of the popular vote, 38 of the 48 states, and almost 85% of the electoral vote.

[cushpush]

>should be regular changes in Executive

yeah, so we can notkeep every international promise going forward?