Essay On Term Limits

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Term limits are an extremely controversial aspect of politics that affect Michigan residents. In 1992, 59 percent of voters supported the enactment of term limits, which would limit the amount of time an elected official was legally able to hold office. Term limit supporters hoped to accomplish a number of things by enacting term limits. A few key aspects that supporters hoped to accomplish were; more competitive elections and the ability to limit the influence of interest groups on elected officials. Term limit supporters believed that term limits would create more competition by increasing the number of open seats available and also believed that limiting the maximum number of years that elected officials could serve, would limit interest groups influence. They believed that interest groups would have less time to create a relationship with elected officials and they would loose the opportunity to work with candidates for years to come. After reading through the term limits book and thoroughly analyzing the authors view points, I would argue that term limits did not accomplish what supporters had hoped. After the enactment of term limits, the number of open seats available largely increased and supporters were hopeful that this would increase electoral competition. Pre-term limit elections obviously had fewer open seats available and therefore closed seats, seats that have an incumbent running, offered greater competition. Post- term limits, did indeed increase the number of available open seats, but lowered the competition for closed seats. Some believe that this result happened because term limits gave challengers the opportunity to wait a relatively short amount of time to run for an open seat and deal with less competition. The chance of winning an election against an incumbent is relatively low. Before term limits, challengers had no choice but to bring the competition against the incumbent, as it was their only chance of winning an election. Now that terms are limited, challengers only have a short amount of time to wait for a less competitive election. Not to mention, running for office costs …show more content…
However, they did not provide the expected changes that they had hoped to. I would argue that term limits have actually caused many negative effects; lowering the amount of competition in political races, lowering the amount of money available for parties to campaign and challenge incumbents and finally, causing challengers to wait for an easier race. While term limits have created more competition within open seat elections, it has caused challengers to wait for opportunity, which in my opinion offers the voting community less chance for change. Open seats are much easier to win for candidates versus closed seats with established incumbents. I believe that it has removed the complex nature of electoral competition. Term limits have given incumbents more power because challengers are now less likely to challenge and political parties have less funding and resources to allocate to races. Prior to term limits, challengers were faced with the option of running or giving an incumbent an even stronger chance of holding a seat hostage and it was because of this that challengers were much more likely to create a competitive campaign against incumbents for closed seats. Now, challengers have the opportunity to wait a relatively small amount of time, to avoid the great nature of electoral competition and wait for an easier opportunity for a win. It is because of

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