[Campaigns-l] Congressional Term Limits

[Dean Poirier]

However, you must first contend with roadblocks such
as, U.S. Term Limits v. Thornton (1995). In that case,
the Supreme Court voted 5-4 to strike down
Congressional term limits enacted by the state of
Arkansas.  In 1992, Arkansas voters amended their
state constitution to limit the number of elections in
which one person could run for the U.S.  Senate or
House of Representatives.  Arkansas defended the
measure as an exercise of its constitutional authority
to determine the “times, places and manner” of
elections.  Writing for a sharply divided Supreme
Court, Justice John Paul Stevens observed that the
Framers intended “that neither Congress nor the states
should possess the power to supplement the exclusive
qualifications set forth in” Article I.  Stevens
further observed that “[a]llowing individual states to
craft their own qualifications for Congress would ... 
erode the structure envisioned by the framers.” 
Stevens was joined by Justices Anthony Kennedy, David
Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer.    
Justice Clarence Thomas wrote the dissent, and was
joined by Chief Justice William H.  Rehnquist and
Justices Sandra Day O’Connor and Antonin Scalia. 
Thomas maintained that “[n]othing in the Constitution
deprives the people of each state of the power to
prescribe eligibility requirements for candidates who
seek to represent them in Congress....  And where the
Constitution is silent, it raises no bar to action by
the states or the people.” In its majority opinion,
the Court recognized cogent arguments on both sides of
the term limits issue.  It concluded, however, that an
issue of this magnitude must be referred to the formal
process by which the Federal Constitution is amended. 
Immediately after the Thornton decision was rendered,
supporters of term limits pledged renewed efforts to
achieve a constitutional amendment to limit the tenure
of members of Congress. That, of course, has not
transpired. 

However, subsequent to the Supreme Court's ruling in
Thornton, some advocates of term limits have sought to
pressure members of Congress and state legislators to
utilize the procedures of Article V of the U.S.
Constitution to amend that document to impose a six
year limit on service in the House and a twelve year
limit on service in the Senate.

--- Nelson Walker <nels96 at gmail.com> wrote:

> It is a mystery to me that, in all the new 'good
> government' websites (like
> wikia) that I come across, I never find any that
> stress the fact that, in
> order to effect REAL reform, it is necessary to have
> a legislature made up
> of 'citizen' legislators, rather than the current
> crop of careerist
> professional politicians. (
> tenurecorrupts.com/#americasfirst )
> 
> And to eliminate professional politicians, it is
> necessary to change
> politics from being a livelihood or career, to
> merely a civic duty, where
> one will try to change government for the better
> during a short stay, then
> return to private practice. That's the way it was
> for the first 150 years of
> our history, before the enticements of politics
> became too good to give up.
> ( tenurecorrupts.com/#followthemoney )
> 
> Politics as a livelihood, or a career, is a
> fundamental conflict of
> interest. When you are supposed to be a
> representative of the people,
> putting their interest, or the country's interest
> before your own, then you
> cannot honestly be in a position to be concerned
> about your job (or your
> reelection). ( tenurecorrupts.com/#reelections )
> 
> i come to wikia in an attempt to correct this void
> in our ongoing dialog. I
> strongly believe that to improve our government, we
> must change the
> character of our Congress, and the most direct way
> to do that is to enact
> Congressional Term Limits.
> 
> Toward this end, I have for the past 2 years been
> building
> tenurecorrupts.com, a website dedicated to educating
> the voting public on
> the need for such limits. The site contains
> arguments (pro and con),
> amendment wording options, links to other sites,
> suggested actions you can
> take to help, etc. The site blog list has
> accumulated over two dozen
> articles on this one subject. ( Boring ?)
> 
> Recently, it has begun offering free term limits
> bumperstickers to all
> comers.
> 
> I would very much like to have the wikia crowd join
> me in discussions to
> exercise this idea, and to help spread the word !
> 
> -- 
> Regards,
> Nelson Lee Walker, Saratoga, CA
> http://tenurecorrupts.com
> nels96 at gmail.com   Ph:408-867-2401
> 
> No politician should be allowed unlimited
> reelections... even if he has the
> votes!
> Remember..TENURE CORRUPTS!
> > _______________________________________________
> Campaigns-l mailing list
> Campaigns-l at wikia.com
> http://lists.wikia.com/mailman/listinfo/campaigns-l
> 


Dean R. Poirier

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