Stop me if you’ve heard this one. A Republican lawmaker tells voters, a few years back, that he loves [tag]term limits[/tag] and wants to make Congress a “[tag]citizen legislature[/tag]” that will somehow return political power “to the people” by having less-experienced officials serving them in public office.
Said lawmaker gets elected and realizes that lawmakers actually learn things while serving their constituents and can represent their communities more effectively with some seniority. It turn, the official decides to break the old promise and run for re-election beyond the arbitrary, self-imposed limit.
Sound familiar? I’ve lost count of how many times this has happened, but we can now add Rep. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) to the list.
[tag]Jeff Flake[/tag] pledged during his first campaign for Congress in 2000 that if elected, he would serve three two-year terms. But the Arizona Republican is running again to keep his seat in the House of Representatives.
“It was a mistake to limit my own terms,” says Flake, a conservative who has challenged Republican leaders on federal spending. He says the once-fashionable movement to limit terms in Congress has “just petered out.”
Flake is one of at least seven House Republicans who had vowed to leave Congress next year but will be on the ballot in November. They ran as citizen legislators — antidotes for “career politicians.” But after six or 12 years on Capitol Hill, they say they’re just getting the hang of the job. None faces serious opposition because redistricting has protected incumbents.
Flake noted the 32-year career of Rep. Henry Hyde (R-Ill.), who is retiring this year. “The institutional memory and that kind of consistency has been a huge plus,” Flake says. “But for every Henry Hyde, there are four or five members who have stayed beyond their effective phase.”
Right. The problem is the “bad” career politicians; not the “good” ones. That’s a helpful standard.
Just to be clear, I don’t necessarily blame Flake for going back on his word. Term limits, to me, are a foolish gimmick that seeks to address a problem that doesn’t actually exist. It’s short-sighted pseudo-populism. We already have term limits in every way that matters — they’re called elections. When voters decide someone has had too many terms, they pick someone else.
I do, however, blame Flake and his colleagues who are following a similar pattern for making the silly promise in the first place. Did it not occur to these guys that maybe, just maybe, they’d learn something on the job? That they could serve their districts better after generating some seniority?