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this post was submitted on 10 Sep 2023
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TBH I think these calls for age limits or term limits are indirectly targeting real problems (like since when do we want people born before the automotive age regulating the internet? and why are both parties led by people still stuck in the 70s?) but the indirect-targeting has a way of creating unintended consequence:
a shorter term limit will term out qualified, great representatives with real expertise
a shorter term limit may intensify corruption if a rep or senator only has so much time to cash in and line up that fat consulting gig
Fundamentally, the voters should be voting out the Feinsteins and McConnells when their age or health conflicts with their ability to represent their interests, and this "let's have age limits and term limits" resolve kinda speaks to me of a desire for self-governance to happen, but without voters having any responsibility in the matter. It's time for our relationship to self-rule be a lot less passive, a lot more assertive.
The meta-problems at play (corruption, the presence of money in politics, the role of first-past-the-post voting to force voters to vote based on how they bet other people will vote, etc) aren't going to be resolved by term limits or age limits- if we want our elected officials to reflect the public interest, all of those conflicts-of-interest have to go.
I'd like to see ranked-choice voting replace FPTP, and for money to be strictly limited in politics, and an end to the permanent campaign our politics have become, and for revolving-door gigs for ex-legislators and regulators to be strictly scrutinized, and for voters to be able to confidently vote out their dinosaurs. If we fix those things, the problem of being ruled by people too old to do the job probably goes away by itself.
This assumes that representing people requires skills, experience, and expertise that can not be obtained elsewhere and can not be provided by advisers. If representing constituents interests did require specific skills, there would be pre-requisite courses. We don't elect people to design and build nuclear reactors - we select them based on their skills. There are certainly skills involved in being a career politician, but these aren't necessarily serving the public interest. I often feel like a politician's main job is convincing constituents that their preferred course of action is best, rather than simply representing constituents interests.
This doesn't make much sense to me. As in, we need to keep shitty politicians around for longer to kind of water down and spread out the shittiness over a greater period of time lest it be intensified.
That's correct. It can't be. New Representatives basically get nothing done. It takes them the two years they have to learn the ropes before they have to start fund raising for their next election. Federal Office is like Professional Sports. How often does someone just walk into it with no prior experience and succeed? It's not just about representing. It's about knowing how to negotiate and convince other representatives to care about what your constituents want. If Advisers are doing all the work, why don't they just run? You know who has all the time and money to "advise" candidates? Lobbyists.
I'm not arguing to keep bad politicians around for no reason, just observing that the reasons they're shitty in the first place are separate from how long they have to do it. If we solve the problem of politicians staying in office too long but we don't do anything about their incentives and ability to be on the take, all we've done is make their time in office maybe more urgent and valuable.
When in doubt, expect your designs to create unintended consequences- especially if they are simple and optimistic and don't deal directly with the actual source of the problem.
This is not to say that we should have septuagenarians in office- I really think we shouldn't- but fundamentally the problem is we don't vote these people out.
I know what you mean, but conceptually isn't that the point?
For example constituents work jobs and make money. Why should I give money to the government? It's the politicians job to convince the constituents.
No, no that is not the point.
Representatives are supposed to represent the interests of their constituents in the course of making laws. That's the foundational principle of representative democracy.
An individual may not want to pay tax personally, but few individuals would agree that no individuals should pay tax.
Man, I wish that were the case. Convincing other REPRESENTATIVES is the main job of a legislator. The reason why lawyers are so good at the role of legislating (the nuclear engineer equivalent in your analogy) is that they are both trained in 1. Convincing others of their argument 2. Understanding legal standings and the workings of government. These skills should be the basis for someones eligibility to be elected. The reason we select one candidate over another is the ideas and values they represent for us in the day in, day out melodrama of governing. The only reason you think the important part is convincing constituents is because that is the part you see. The real work is making the damn sausage.
Ranked-choice would go a long way in cleaning up our two-party system. And getting young people to vote in greater numbers.
But let's face it. People want age limits because they recognize that this is a potential solution because the other solutions seem far away and difficult to attain. Dems won't support ranked-choice because being less-terrible than repubs is basically their only sure way to get elected.
For clarity, I'm not arguing against age limits- I just think that these things:
old politicians are out of touch and mental decline is a problem
corrupt politicians aren't held accountable
...are separate problems. If we solve the first one, that'll be a good thing, but if we do it without also addressing the second one, we'll still have the same accountability/corruption problems but with faster turnover.
Worse than that, setting up rules that go a bit like: [after n terms/x age, we can't elect you even if we love you and you're great] will go a long way towards addressing that first problem, but could create problems down the line.
For example, when we created the notion of a debt ceiling (we can't do the thing without a supermajority, even if it's the right thing) seemed reasonable on its face, it would bind the hands of future profligate spenders and that would solve the debt problem, right? But, we really just tied the hands of majorities and gave bad-faith minorities the power to ransom their political demands against turning the world economy into a dumpster fire.
Fundamentally, it's the voters' job to vote out the people that aren't fit to serve, and the reasons we don't reliably do that seem to be that machine politics and corrupt democracy seem to make it risky to vote out your McConnells and Grassleys and Pelosis and Feinsteins and such, because so much of the institutional gravity of the parties revolves around them.
I say, yes! Forcibly retire the dinosaurs with a pension and make them develop their successors before they're dead. But, don't expect that to solve the democracy problem, work on that too
If it's meaningful to elect the absolute best people the system isn't good enough.
I am fine banning politicians from being lobbyists.
The Fiensteins and McConnells only exist in super safe, non-competetive elections.
You're overthinking things. People over 65 are experiencing physical and mental deterioration and should not hold office. That's the end of the conversation, stop muddling the issue.