Better transitions / citations / category titles
Relook at raw notes
Excel -> make it look clearner / includ the numbers fo the previous serving legislatures
Analysis of the Ideas Supporting and Opposing Term Limits for US Congressmen and the Potential Negative Consequences for the Institution of Congress
Part I: Introduction
The history of term limits dates back to the Ancient Greeks and Romans; the Greeks rotated everyone in their council of 500 annually, and the magistrates who were elected in the early Roman Republic served single year terms. Some of the framers of the Constitution, including Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin, feared infinite terms to be “dangerously oligarchic”, and felt that …show more content…
Congress as a collection of individuals suffers faces situations in which the incentives of its members are not aligned with the institution of Congress because they must be elected by the members of their home districts who view Congress as a whole. The president has historically been viewed more favorably than Congress; and part of this is due to support from party loyalists and the fact that the president has the ability to act unilaterally and make his positions clear.
Arguments in Favor
Supporters of term limits believe that limits may stimy the problems created by this institutional structure. They argue that the system has unfairly favored politicians who have been able to take advantage of the system, and that limits will work to create a more frequent flow of individuals who will bring new ideas, a fresh perspective, and be free of the corrupting influences that have made their presences in Washington over the past several …show more content…
However, empirical evidence suggests that term limits don’t actually affect the composition of the legislatures. John Carey aggregated the background information of legislators in 3000 state governments in the U.S. and conducted a comparative analysis on the professional backgrounds and demographics of legislators before and after the term limit was imposed. HIs findings indicated no significant differences in the preferences, ideological representation, or demographic composition of the legislative bodies in term limit and non-term limit states.
This is supported by the public commentary of members of these legislatures. Rob Stutzman was the chief of communications for Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger of California, and he served when California voters approved limits restricting Assembly members to three two-year terms and state senators to two four-year terms. In a letter to the LA Times, he argued that term limits have done little to change the political class. He found that new members worked with or were related to former legislators, and so the actual political class came from the same circles. Check raw notes -> Mexico or florida case on