Why Should Congress Have Term Limits Essay

The 28th Amendment: Term Limits Why should congress have term limits? Simple. To get new ideas and people in and older, more generationally out-of-touch, out. Now sure, it’s always good to have some old wisdom to guide the younger, newer congressmen, it’s also good to have new people with new ideas for the ever-changing times we live in. I believe we as a nation need to vote and get congress to pass an amendment to the constitution for congressional term limits. The average age for congress is 59. That’s about 20 years older than the average American voter. I, as a 19-year-old, have someone 40 years older than me making decisions that are influenced by a different time. I think that to help our generation we need to have younger representatives who are more in touch with us to be making decisions about our futures. Now in saying that, we can’t just have any young person put into office. We need someone who is knowledgeable about the economy and how our country works. Here we can see an opportunity for an opponent to term limits say how the more experience and knowledge is more …show more content…
This is called “careerism”. Careerism in congress was first observed in the late 1890’s to early 1900’s when the number of new representatives in the house decline and the number of incumbents rose. Without term limits congressmen, as long as they either stay in favor of the public or can scare off the competition, can be in office indefinitely. Generally, the longer a congressman is in office the more favor he has with the people and the more money he has to fund his re-election campaign. This can hinder the chances of a newer perspective congressman from winning the election. By doing this the incumbents, in a way, “monopolize” the congress. In the 19th century the turnover rate of each new congress was 45%, in the 20th it was