What are we talking about
In this weeks Strat-lounge, Bill proposed having a political party where a core principle is ‘anyone who runs for this party will serve 1 term only in any elected position’. I would like to go through the idea to identify the strengths and weaknesses. If anyone has additional thoughts, please comment.
The proposal
The basic proposal is that any candidate will sign a legally binding contract (with the party?) that they will only serve one term in office.
Potential Strengths
- Those elected will be ‘closer to the people’ – they will better understand the people and the issues they face.
- Those elected will be less affected by lobbyists – they are less likely to be bought by vested interests and corporations.
- As there will be many more former elected representatives, they will be able to share their experiences of government with more people.
- Because they will never face an incumbent, more candidates may step forward to stand.
- ‘Serving a term’ may become a desired career goal – not for a political career, but for other productive careers – like a degree used to be. the term in office may be considered an educational achievement.
- Because the candidates will be more likely to have spent time being a productive member of society before serving their term, they will bring free-market skills and attitudes to their positions.
Potential Weaknesses
- Those elected will lack experience of the working of government … or maybe that is a positive!?
- Because those elected will have less experience, the civil service will end up running everything unless senior positions in the civil-service are also limited to a single term
- When on a ballot, these candidates will likely have less name recognition.
- The party is less able to generate ‘grandee’ individuals within the party, who know all the ins-and-outs and all the players.
- Because these politicians will only serve one term, any corporation or vested interest will likely try to buy the loyalty of candidates in other parties by making substantial contributions to their campaigns.
- Potential candidates may fear that serving a single term will derail their ‘real’ career.
- The democrats, big tech and the MSM will certainly smear everyone in the party as a far-right, nazi, white-supremacist, islamo-phobe, homo-phobe, trans-phobe…..
- As the party will decide which candidates get their support, which candidates get the experienced advisors and good assistants, the ‘behind the scenes’ party will become much more powerful.
The Practical Reality
The reality is likely to be (IMHO), you will have trainees and the party infrastructure helping those candidates who are elected. Once they have served their term, political career minded people, who have sucked-up to the party grandees, will get advisory positions to help the later candidates in their new roles, so the institutionalization will still exist to some extent.
There will be massive increase in the competency of those elected.
Candidates for this party will face a wall of lies and abuse from the media like we have never seen.
The Psychology
How does this idea strengthen / weaken the core political perspectives (the population being pro-state-power or pro-individual-power)?
I would like to be able to say that this structural change to the democratic process will make people less dependent of the state, but I can’t. I do not believe this will change the leftward direction of society, as long as politicians are able to bribe people with other peoples money.
I would say though, that the ‘churn’ in candidates will likely provoke more discussion about whey the constitution is a great thing.
In summary
This has the potential to start to restore public trust in the democratic process, when people see those they elec to represent them, actually representing them.
sorry, a bit rushed … feedback appreciated
9 replies on “One-term politicians – Thoughts on BWs’ proposal”
I concur, This proposal would only allow the deep state more power. This is our current problem now in DC.
We would need to ensure that all senior civil service positions were ‘single term’ – once someone has done a term in an appointed position, they are required to leave the civil service.
Are you proposing to give a seasoned FBI director a single term? Perhaps if that single term was 35 years, That might work.
I am saying that a senior appointed position, one appointed by people who were elected, should be for the duration of the terms of those elected people.
fbi director should be in his position for four years, and then needs to leave government.
I understand why you want to limit the terms. However I am not so sure that only 4 years of service is required to refine a professional knowledge base. It is my belief that they may not have enough experience to operate efficiently. Unless this experience was gained outside of the government position. But even then it requires a great deal of time just to form an effective team based on personalities.
I don’t disagree. we are weighing different factors to get the correct balance. my expectation is that any civil servant wanting the ‘top job’, knowing that it will be their last four years, will leave it to late in their career. They may, therefore, be very qualified when they reach that position.
What counts as “office” and “term” in this context? I.e. someone was successful on the school board, did he used up the ticket to be the major of the small town? Maybe even have to leave the school board after a few years and retire from any civil involvement?
While I absolutely agree that a pure political career is a bad thing and better be prevented, going overboard in the other direction could flush the baby with the bathwater.
Many of those places require acquired experience from the spot. Standing down from being a competent major just when you finally can do it correctly seems like a waste even if we had scores of good replacements what we usually lack.
It’s a good question. what do you suggest?
I thoroughly agree with your points.