Thursday, September 15, 2005
Term Limits update
It looks like the final language coming out of the Michigan Chamber of Commerce will be quite a bit different than what we saw earlier. The new plan limits any office holder to 14 years in either chamber, which is right where it is now (two 4 year senate terms and three 2 year house terms). A lot of politicians already serve 14 years anyway, this bill would just allow certain members to stay put and serve out their time in one chamber. This, in my mind, takes the worst of two systems. First, you kick out the people who really care about government pre-maturely. Voters are good judges, they know what they like and they like voting for their candidates. Second, you re-establish the seniority system, but this time without the massive amount of institutional knowledge. That way, business and industry only need to get into the pockets of the few at the top, and they only need to do it every 5 years or so instead of every 2 like the situation exists now. This seems awfully bad to me. A better idea would be to do away with term limits entirely. It would make a lot more sense for everybody involved.
# posted by Jon Koller @ 6:09 PM 
