Earlier quoted context omitted.
why should a 70 year old retire if her constituents continue to support her?
her constituents above a certain age* many of her constituents aren't allowed to vote
The voting age is 18. Children shouldn't vote.
Dianne Feinstein has died
321–330 of 377 posts
Re: Dianne Feinstein has died
#322Earlier quoted context omitted.
why should a 70 year old retire if her constituents continue to support her?
To avoid the whole "walking dead" thing that keeps happening to elderly politicians. I think it is self-evidently bad when the people running the country cannot remember what happened yesterday.
Apparently you are in the minority. Her constituents had no problem voting for her in the last election despite her advanced age. They either don't care or value experience over other concerns.
Re: Dianne Feinstein has died
#323Earlier quoted context omitted.
I strongly disagree with her politics, and also believe that she should have retired earlier. A mentor of mine used to remind me, "always react with class". I fail at this a lot, but try. I think it would be good for you to try too. And also to remember that she was fairly elected. She was who the people wanted. If you want to be angry, be angry at the people who continued to elect her. Maybe not so much vitrol direc…
She's now literally the only person who cannot be affected by vitriol. Nevertheless attempts to pin the blame on her for things her constituency was obviously happy or oblivious to is misguided. Term limits give more power to the lobbyists and other back-room powers, because they are never term limited, and they quickly learn how to be exceptionally persuasive to newbie representatives. At least a non-limited represe…
> She's now literally the only person who cannot be affected by vitriol.
You feel like heaping vitrol on a recently deceased person is an acceptable thing to do?
My point was about reacting with class.
You don't have to live that way, but practicing it makes your life and the lives of those around you better.
I agree with your other points though.
One of the unintended consequences of term limits is the strengthening of the bureaucracy.
Re: Dianne Feinstein has died
#324Earlier quoted context omitted.
Between her and McConnell and the other gerontocrats in Washington, I’m really baffled. Why do these people grip the reins of power until their knuckles turn white? What is so important about political horse trading that they have to literally haul you out of office on a stretcher?
I can offer one piece of puzzle: the demographics of registered votes has increased significantly. Take a look at "Age and generation" at https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2020/10/26/what-the-... . > The U.S. electorate is aging: 52% of registered voters are ages 50 and older, up from 41% in 1996. This shift has occurred in both partisan coalitions. More than half of Republican and GOP-leaning voters (56%) are…
Tyranny of old
Re: Dianne Feinstein has died
#325I don't know how to pull it off, but somehow we've got to figure out a way to correct the system that only awards power after decades in office. About the time that members of Congress should be retiring is when they gain actual committee leadership and seniority, and thus the incentives are for a gerontocracy. It also means that those who understand the system are incentivized to vote for and keep incumbents who otherwise may not be the best candidate choice. I wish RGB and Feinstein (and plenty of others still in power) would have had the courage to step aside gracefully, but the incentives for them to stay are just too perverse and stretch far beyond them as individuals.
Re: Dianne Feinstein has died
#326I know the easy approach here is for people to want an age limit in Congress, but I've always been more partial to a term limit. I'm sure there are plenty of hypotheses as to why this happens, but whatever the cause elected officials seem to have an extremely easy go of getting re-elected these days. The increasing average age in Congress is just a side effect of that in my opinion.
The problem with term limits is that they don't apply to lobbyists. Lobbyists basically writing most of the legislation is already a major problem, and it becomes worse when all the representatives are new to the office.
One really interesting question there, how much of the work is really don't by the elected official?
If a lot of the "real" work is done by the staffers, career government workers, etc then the politician really is the public face and occasionally redirecting the ship. I'd say there is less risk there and more to gain from fresh faces and opinions in that spot, again if that's how the workload shakes out behind the scenes
Re: Dianne Feinstein has died
#327Earlier quoted context omitted.
Term limits definitely come with very real tradeoffs. I'd argue, though, that if the machine is that corrupt it doesn't matter what we do with politicians. What you're describing sounds to me like the politicians are inconsequential puppets and the machine must be limited or removed. I could a tuallg get behind that idea, it wouldn't take much to convince me that term limits don't go after the real problem.
Maybe we should consider a less violent version of what Thomas Jefferson wanted and just replace the entire government, top to bottom, every 20 years. On top of any other term limits or whatever - just periodically reset everything for the current generation. Maybe that would even include a Constitutional convention. I've long been of the opinion that we should be updating the Constitution more often, and more easily…
I'm definitely a fan of the general sentiment. Exactly how that is done to keep enough stability to avoid constant churn would be a really interesting debate, but I've long thought that laws should be required to come with expiration dates that have to be renewed.
Personally, I'd also be so interested to see what the political response would be today if a group of well known and respected individuals scheduled a constitutional convention to honestly hold such discussions. It's exactly what we did to being the process of breaking away from the king, I wonder if they would get shut down somehow?
Re: Dianne Feinstein has died
#328Earlier quoted context omitted.
And maybe elders should be excluded for the same reason! That is: Why do we exclude people under 18 from voting? Because we think they don't have the mental tools to understand policy well enough to make an informed decision. Well, if seniors don't have the mental tools anymore, should they be allowed to vote? And this is even stronger with holding office. You can vote at 18, but you can't be a representative until 2…
Remember that much of our current system has been a slow increase of the "popular" vote, from landholders to men to adults. At some point it'll go to "everyone above the age of 0" but let's not ignore that kids will at first vote the way their parents do, and then vote the exact opposite for awhile.
I don't think we need to assume that actual children will someday vote. It's not punitive to say that we should have some age threshold into adulthood and its responsibilities. There are so many facets of society that necessitate some degree of protection of young people that it isn't unfair or unrealistic to also create a barrier around their full participation in our Democratic society.
Re: Dianne Feinstein has died
#329Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't think it's fair to assume that votes are representative of performance. Politics are a popularity contest first and unfortunately that means image is more important than actions.
Are term limits more representative of performance than votes?
I'd say term limits are an unfortunate tradeoff that might be helpful when votes and performance diverge too far.
If the machine itself is broken, any changes or limitations to the output (the politicians here) are just bandaids. I do actually think we should fix the underlying problem, but hopefully term limits could buy us some time and start to remove power from those who gained so much by the system that needs fixing.
Re: Dianne Feinstein has died
#330Earlier quoted context omitted.
My main concern without term limits is when an elected official moves from being popular and effective at their job to being effective at getting reelected. Those are very different skills, with the latter risking politicians that are only reelected because of the power, favors, and connections they have collected. Term limits definitely aren't a magic fix, I just see the tradeoffs as worth it relative to my personal…
My main concern without term limits is when an elected official moves from being popular and effective at their job to being effective at getting reelected. How does forcing new candidates every number of years ensure that elected officials will be "popular and effective at their job"?
It doesn't. You aren't the only one here that raised similar question, I should have clarified that in my original post.
I don't actually like governments creating regulations and drawing lines in the sand. As many have raised with term limits, it isn't a perfect answer and at best bandaids the real problem rather than fixing it.
I'd argue that's the case with any regulation emposed on large populations, there are just too many complexities at that scale to draw a clean line. With term limits specifically, I see it as an unfortunate but possibly necessary tradeoff that may at least give us a chance to start fixing the real problem. We both need more time to find the right answer, and we need to remove those who collected so much power and control from the same system that needs to be fixed in the first place.