Thread: Term limits on Senators and members of the House?

Originally Posted by gophangover

Six years max for Supreme Court judges. That way we don't get Alzheimer patients making ridiculous rulings. Nobody should have that kind of power for that long. And the judges should be elected not appointed.

I think the life appointments are great. It removes any pressure from a judge from having to act in a certain way or get removed. It also means judicial decisions don't swing wildly back and forth as each side loads up the SC every 6 years depending on who is president.

Originally Posted by Junkieturtle

I think the life appointments are great. It removes any pressure from a judge from having to act in a certain way or get removed. It also means judicial decisions don't swing wildly back and forth as each side loads up the SC every 6 years depending on who is president.

If judges were elected it wouldn't matter if the prez was a con or a lib. And they wouldn't have to all be elected at the same time, just three every two years.

Originally Posted by gophangover

That's just trying to get rid of democracy. Voters have a constitutional right to have whoever they want for their representative. What's sad is, voters keep re-electing those that are the problem instead of electing those that would fix the problems. There's no cure for stupid.

There really isn't a good choice. Consider this year's presidential election. If you are a democrat, a progressive or a liberal but don't feel that Obama is a good choice for the job, you are out of luck. You can either vote for Obama, vote for a conservative republican or throw your vote away with a third party. You can't vote Obama out without giving the next four years over to a candidate with the opposite ideology.

Is there any logic (beside campaign logic) whatsoever in the shapes of these districts?









Should Gerrymandering end?

Originally Posted by PARAMONOS

Is there any logic (beside campaign logic) whatsoever in the shapes of these districts?









Should Gerrymandering end?

There isn't a good way to get rid of gerrymandering. Ultimately if you want evenly populated congressional districts, someone will have to make a choice about how it's shaped. Well, those decisions will always be driven by political factors, and there's basically no way to do that other than perhaps simply handing it over to a computer program to solve--a proposal that would never be accepted by any state legislature.

Term limits for a legislative body are a bad idea. You wind up with too many unknown candidates, with the result that you could be as likely right throwing a dart over your shoulder. Consider, too, that a legislator, whether state or federal, has to convince a whole bunch of other people that he has a good idea.

And executive can do a lot of things by fiat. Appointing judges is a good example. Look at the whackjobs that Bush the Lesser stuck us with.

Without term limits, we might even have wound up with a POTUS whose brain had already turned to goop, but who would have had a chance to appoint a bunch more morons to the federal bench. Scarey.

I would like to see some limit on judges, at least require periodic congressional votes of confidence. Maybe 12-year VOCs for SCOTUS.

Originally Posted by PARAMONOS

Is there any logic (beside campaign logic) whatsoever in the shapes of these districts?









Should Gerrymandering end?

Bloody good arguement for computerizing the system.