A SIMPLE RECIPE TO FIX CONGRESS.

This is the political season. It is the time to think seriously about how and whether we are going to vote.  And particularly about our votes for the people in Congress.

Judging by its poll ratings (about 9% favorable), it is arguably one of the worst Congresses ever.

Yet, if we go by the current trend, close to 98% of them will be reelected!

How to explain this?

The reasons are simple and fundamental and basically our (the voters) fault:

1. The voters who want to vote for challengers never win, and so they stop voting.

2. The voters who vote for incumbents always win, so they keep voting.

3. As a result, only 45% of Americans vote, mostly for incumbents, so incumbents win 98% of the time.

How to fix this? Always vote, but never vote for incumbents. In other words, NEVER REELECT ANYONE!

FIX THE SHORTAGE OF LEADERSHIP

Liberals and environmentalists have been brainwashing the public and Congress for 25 years, intensively and unceasingly, about 'manmade' global warming, which has prevented us from using America’s rich natural resources of oil, gas, coal, and uranium, for the production of energy.

(By the way, who made the Earth’s ‘Ice Age’ go away? It sure wasn’t 'Man' !)

The American people are not dumb, but the steady drumbeat of environmentalist strategy to thwart the harvest of energy resources has had its effect, especially on the career politicians in Congress, who rely on the financial and electoral support of this special interest to get reelected forever.

There is little question that the country is suffering a dire shortage of leadership, a shortage of people who are willing to confront these enviros, who don’t feel a need to be ‘liked’ by their peers, and who are willing to take a ‘pro-energy’ position which might cause them to be attacked by fanatical liberals and ‘greens’.

Free market principles AND ample energy supplies is what enables this country to continue to lead the world in prosperity, standard of living, technology, medical progress, low unemployment, etc. Without cheap, plentiful energy, our advances will shrivel into a mediocre, even backward, way of life.

I have nothing against wind, solar, etc, but they will always be puny, almost negligible, compared to what the future will need.

One of the principal areas of activity stifling our country’s overall vigor is the ever expanding federal government and its leviathan of regulatory bureaucracy, (e.g. EPA) of which the restriction of energy development is a prime example of how our creeping loss of liberty is a drag on American progress.

The chief villain in this story is the US Congress, which creates and empowers the stifling bureaucracies, and which has long since been corrupted into two chambers of sinecures, where the principal occupation of its members is to guarantee perpetual reelection and lifelong tenure, the well-being of the country be damned.

So how to end this shortage of leadership? I suggest one way: create a 100% turnover in the US Congress in the next few elections.

Since Congress is a key factor in proposing laws, policy, and debates in our country, and provides its members with the visibility to reach all the people (thru C-span TV), shouldn’t we strive to make it available to citizen legislators instead of career political hacks?

I’ll bet that 535 freshmen in Congress would be a great seedbed of REAL leadership! And how do we do that?

Simply never reelect anyone in Congress!

I’m Nelson Lee Walker of tenurecorrupts.com

  VOTERS AND NON- VOTERS, LISTEN UP! (text)

Our dysfunctional Congress is the direct result of an apathetic voter population, which in turn, is the direct result of the absence of term limits.

Voters who really want an effective, responsible Congress, are turned off from voting because they feel voting is a meaningless exercise, since Congress is chock full of permanent, careerist, professional politicians, who are principally concerned with reelection first, good government last.

These politicians don’t want to do a civic duty. They only want a well paid job, which has generous benefits, no boss, is non-accountable, has a large staff, many perquisites, and possible lifetime tenure. And to get this, all they have to do is ‘con’ voters into always reelecting them.

Toward this end, the incumbents carefully manage their voting records and speeches to nurture the special interest groups who give them the most financial and electoral support for the next election. And they are succeeding. Reelection rates for the House are 98%, the Senate is 90%.

So the responsible voter says “What’s the use?”, and doesn’t vote.

In the early 1900’s, reelections averaged in the 60% range
In the 1960’s, House reelections averaged about 90%, voter turnout was about 62%, .
After 2000, House reelections reached 98%, voter turnout was down to about 50%.
I predict that when reelection rates reach 100%, voter turnout will plunge to below 35%.
And Congress will still stand rock-solid against term limits!

That will be the beginning of the end of our liberty, and our once great republic.

There is only one way to correct this slide into national oblivion. It requires the American voter to take back Congress. We can do it, simply. It only requires determination.

First, we must, all of us, always vote, in every election. We must raise voter turnout from the current 50% level to over 80%. In every Congressional election.

Second, and most importantly, we must never reelect incumbents. Good or bad. We must always vote for challengers. Also good or bad. We must give up our party and incumbent loyalties, and concentrate on achieving a 100% turnover in Congress. We can do it in 3 elections. The whole House and 1/3 of the Senate is up every two years.

In reality, only a substantial partial success is required. When the media and the pols see the trend, they will panic. And new freshmen, seeing the trend, will then vote the way the voters want them to vote.

We can always go back to voting for our party and a favorite candidate AFTER we take back the Congress and install Term Limits. If we don’t win this battle soon, we will eventually no longer have any choice on who to vote for. We’ll have a fully permanent Congress. And it will be our fault!

I'm Nelson Lee Walker of tenurecorrupts.com

AMERICA'S FIRST PRIORITY - CONGRESSIONAL TERM LIMITS

Why should Congressional Term Limits should be America's first priority?

In all the hurly-burly of present day Congressional politics, doesn't it occur to anyone that there is no judicious, forward-thinking legislating going on? Each issue that comes up is tackled on a political, hysterical, poll-driven basis, and seldom addressed with any real intent to solve problems with hard-headed commonsense solutions. In other words, it is mostly "Don't just stand there! Do something! Anything! Just look like you're doing Something!" (and especially don't let the other side win on any issue!)

This is the mode of our current-day 'permanently re-elected' Congress, whose ongoing chief pre-occupation is getting reelected, which they do with a 99% success rate. Pretty good for stumblebums, eh?

Even when one party or the other does have a 'good' solution, the opposite party votes against it, or amends it into uselessness, for fear that the sponsoring party might earn some credit in the next (re)election for doing something good.

Politics! The bane of our existence! (Yeah, but it's still better than tyranny!)

We can't stop political shenanigans completely, but we can sharply reduce its wicked tendencies by enacting Congressional Term Limits. A large part of the evils of politics is brought about by the addiction of career politicians to the reelection process.

As soon as they are first elected to any office, careerist politicians become consumed with plans to get reelected. From that time on, all their moves and deals and pronouncements are related to how it will affect their reelection chances.

Take for example the following list of issues which, if tackled with the best intentions for the country, and not for either party's benefit, and nor for any special interest's benefit, would most likely be solved by a 'citizen Congress', but will never be effectively solved by our current 'permanently' reelected careerist Congress:

Social Security reform with universal mandatory PRAs (including those on welfare)
Means-tested medical Rx drug plans
Mandatory medical savings plans
Universal school choice for competitive schooling
Immigration reform including border control, assimilation requirements/incentives
Computer-based neutral redistricting w/o human interference
Fraud-proof nationwide voting, including purged voter rolls
Regulation-free political financing with instant online disclosure
De-regulation of energy: exploration, drilling, refining, nuclear power.
Transparent budgetary process

Every one of the above issues facing the country, and more, would be more equitably and intelligently debated, resolved, and passed, if we had a term limited 'citizen congress' working on the job.

And lastly, but certainly not least, we will never get Congressional Term Limits passed, and a 'citizen Congress' installed, while the Congress is dominated by careerist professional politicians who think it is their God-given right to hold a seat in Congress in perpetuity! This, in spite of the fact that Americans are passing term limits for local and state officeholders all across the country. Why not for Congress?

This simply means that, of all the issues facing the country today, none is more important than placing a Congressional Term Limits Amendment at the top of our own citizen agenda, and getting it passed.

Stop and think. Every single other issue is unlikely to be effectively resolved, unless we have a large contingent of fresh, non-careerist legislators in the Congress who realize that they are only there temporarily, to do a job for the country, not to work for reelection. And we won't get those fresh legislators until we force out the career politicians who win reelection 99% of the time.

It is time to stop reelecting incumbents! It is time to vote out incumbents! (both good and bad!).

It is time to give citizen legislators a chance!

It is past time for a Congressional Term Limits Amendment!

I'm Nelson Lee Walker, Saratoga, CA
tenurecorrupts.com

CONGRESSIONAL TERM LIMITS, ANYONE? APPARENTLY NOT !

But why not ? It appears that there is too much news activity going on around the world, to get anyone interested in Congressional Term Limits. Despite the fact that local and statewide term limits are sweeping our country by 75% ballot victories, it's going to require some kind of ‘bombshell’ to get Congressional Term Limits any kind of respect from the national editorial media, or the blogs. Nobody writes about it. Why so?

The absence of Congressional Term Limits is a festering sore, a cancer, a disease that apparently dare not speak its name. Why the absence of commentary on this vital subject?

During the past 50 years, Congress has managed to improve its ability to get reelected close to 100% of the time, as compared to less than 60% in the previous 180 years. As a result, getting elected to Congress has practically become a lifetime ‘appointment’, just like the Supreme Court! Doesn't anyone consider a permanently 'elected' Congress a danger to our republic? Everyone 'knows' that tenure corrupts.

The growing success of state and local term limits is a testimony to the native commonsense of the American people. But they need the help of their so-called 'free press' to shame Congress into voting for a Term Limits Amendment. Why doesn't our vaunted 'free press' pick up the baton?

Are they intimidated? How? Or why?

Nelson Lee Walker

IS TERM LIMITS UNDEMOCRATIC ?

One of my anti-term limits correspondents maintains that term limits do not belong in a democracy. She claims that candidates should be given free air time to get their messages out, and that the media should focus more on issues like the economy, the war, etc, and not on trivia like accidents and hurricanes.

On the last item, I could not agree with her more. However, the media live in a democracy, and we have to live with their choices. But as far as free TV air time is concerned, that would be an unmitigated disaster. It is already bad enough when all sides have plenty of money to use to spread their many lies, distortions, and false allegations. (more of democracy’s blemishes). What do you think would happen if their air time was free? Every nut job in all creation would seek and get their allotted time to harangue us with junk propaganda, drowning out the messages of the few sane candidates out there. But yes, it would be more democratic.

Forunately, our Founders gave us a republic designed to avoid ‘mob rule’.But her contention that term limits is anti-democratic is nonsense, for several reasons:

Firstly, term limits can only happen by a vote of the people, and by a large majority at that. It takes 2/3rds of each house of Congress, and 3/4ths of the states to pass it. How much more democratic can you get?

Secondly, in spite of the low regard that most people hold for politicians in general, why is it that the reelection of incumbents has reached the 99% level? Certainly not because their voters think that they are doing such a sterling job. No, it is more likely that most voters unthinkingly go along with their guy who is in office now, unless he has done something to anger them.

Thirdly, does it not seem that the 99% reelection rate is undemocratic on its face? It defies commonsense that 99% of challengers are inferior to the incumbents. Or that 99% of incumbents really deserve reelection.

Fourthly, I strongly disagree that a Congress full of term-limitted ‘citizen legislators’, fresh from the private sector, where they have gained a lot more real world experience than career professional politicians who have spent their life in government, would be led around ‘by the nose’ by the staffs, or the bureaucracy, or by lobbyists. No way!

On the other hand, I contend that the absence of term limits is very undemocratic, because the professional politicians have discovered how to prevent challengers from winning elections, thereby eliminating more choice for voters.

I’m Nelson Lee Walker, and I believe our country needs Congressional Term Limits. Desperately!
tenurecorrupts.com

  IS IT ALREADY 'CONGRESS FOR LIFE' ?

One of our Signups lamented the fact that there is no readily available list of all the 'old bulls' (or old bums) in the Congress, a list which could be used to highlight how bad the situation is. I checked, and found some info on the Senate, which allowed me to make my own list below, but I could not find such info on the House. So I just made some intelligent guesses for Representatives.

In any case, to make the same list for the House would take an awful lot of time, so the Senate list will have to do for now, with just an estimate for the House. (If any of you know of a similar list for the House, please let me know)

SENATOR  STATE  YEARS Byrd          WV    48 Inouye       HI      48 Kennedy     MA     44 Stevens      AK     40 Biden         DE     36 Domenici    NM     36 Leahy         VT     36 Dodd         CT      30 Lugar         IN      30 Grassley     IA      30 Sarbanes    MD     30 Levin         MI      30 Cochran      MS     30 Baucus       MT     30 Spector      PA     30 Hatch        UT      30 Warner      VA      30 Shelby       AL     24 McCain      AZ      24 Harkin       IA      24 McConnell   KY     24 Mikulski     MD     24 Kerry        MA      24 Bond         MO     24 Bingaman   NM     24 Rockefeller  WV    24 Boxer         CA    18 Leiberman   CT    18 Craig          ID    18 Lott           MS    18 Burns         MT    18 Gregg         NH   18 Dorgan       ND    18 Bennett      UT     18 Conrad       ND    18 Jeffords      VT    18 Murray       WA    18 Kohl          WI    18 Feingold     WI    18

IN SUMMARY: 39% of Senators have been in office for three terms, or 18 years or more, as of 2006.
And 17% have been there five terms, or 30 years or more.

As for the House of Representatives, in 1996, 125 of the 435 seats (29%), had been held for 7 terms (14 yrs or more). Based on the 98% reelection rate of incumbents in the last 10yrs, I would guess that that the ratio has risen to above 45% today.

In other words, it appears that in a few more years, election to Congress will be as good as getting elected for life! Putting it another way, there will be no point in having Congressional elections unless an incumbent dies or goes to jail.
(When do we start calling them "your majesties"?)

Again, in just a few more years, it will be 'Congress for Life'. This is not what the Founders intended! And it is certainly not what clear-thinking Americans are willing to accept! You can help to avoid this iminent calamity by joining one or more of the following Term Limits organizations to help put pressure on Congress to pass a Congressional Term Limits Amendment.

Vote Out Incumbents for Democracy
US Term Limits
Citizens for Term Limits
Initiative & Referendum Institute

Nelson Lee Walker, Saratoga, CA
tenurecorrupts.com

FOLLOW THE MONEY !

Here are some of the reasons why Congresspeople so fiercely oppose term limits.
Put very simply, it is because the job is extremely ‘cushy’, and cannot be matched elsewhere.

1. It offers a nice salary, about $160, 000/year, plus expenses, with guaranteeed annual increases.
2. It offers the best health benefits available, generously subsidized. (small co-pay)
3. It offers luxurious pension benefits, generously subsidized (long service gets near salary for life)
4. It offers opportunities for free vacations anywhere in the world, usually more than once/yr.
5. It offers the opportunity to be reelected 'forever' (99%+ in the 2004 election).
6. It offers the opportunity to work (or not work) without supervision.
7. It provides a staff/budget to do the ‘work’, e.g. meet constituents, write/read(or not) bills, help reelection, etc.
8. It provides the opportunity to wield ‘power’ (most important for the many ego-driven)
9. It provides the option to hire family members at generous salaries.
10. It provides opportunities for the less scrupulous to become truly wealthy.

I believe this list leaves very little room for an incumbent to nobly claim he is being a ‘public servant’. Don't you think this list alone more than justifies a Congressional Term Limits Amendment ?  I certainly do!

I'm Nelson Lee Walker, and I'm gonna keep pluggin' for Congressional Term Limits. Please join me.
tenurecorrupts.com

 WHY THE SILENCE ON TERM LIMITS ?
                        (first published at Campaign Wikia July 9, 2006)
It is a mystery to me that, in all the new ‘good government’ websites (like wikia) that I come across, I never find any which stress the fact that, in order to effect REAL reform, it is necessary to have a legislature made up of ‘citizen’ legislators, rather than the current crop of careerist professional politicians. tenurecorrupts.com/#americasfirst

And to eliminate professional politicians, it is necessary to change politics from being a livelihood or career, to essentially a civic duty, where a citizen will try to change government for the better, during a short stay, then return to private practice. That’s the way it was for the first 150 years of our history, before the enticements of politics became too good to give up. tenurecorrupts.com/#followthemoney

Politics as a livelihood, or a career, is a fundamental conflict of interest. When you are supposed to be a representative of the people, putting the people’s interest, or the country’s interest, before your own, then you cannot honestly be in a position to be concerned about your job (or your reelection). tenurecorrupts.com/#reelections

I come to wikia in an attempt to correct this void in our ongoing dialog. I strongly believe that to improve our government, we must change the character of our Congress, and the most direct way to do that is to enact Congressional Term Limits.

Toward this end, I have for the past 2 years been building tenurecorrupts.com, a website dedicated to educating the voting public on the need for such limits. The site contains arguments (pro and con), amendment wording options, links to other sites, suggested actions you can take to help, etc. The site blog list has accumulated over two dozen aricles on this single subject. ( maybe boring, but focussed!)

Recently, the site has begun offering free term limits  window / bumper stickers  to all comers, which say:
"DONOT REELECT ANY SENATOR OR CONGRESSMAN TIL WE TERM LIMIT CONGRESS !"

I would very much like to have the wikia crowd join me in discussions to exercise this idea, and to help spread the word !

Nelson Lee Walker

A PROPOSAL for a  3 TERM - 1 TERM CONGRESS?

In 1995, the newly victorious Republican majority in the House of Representatives, intent on displaying their ‘integrity’ on the matter of meeting their campaign promise to pass Congressional Term Limits, pulled a cunning, sleazy stunt.

They brought to the floor for ‘debate’, a number of different forms of term limits bills, so that various House members could each vote ‘FOR’ one or another of the bills, demonstrating that they were fulfilling their promise to ‘try’ to get  term limits passed in the House, yet certain in the fact that no specific bill would gather a 2/3 majority to pass.

That fraudulent political trick teaches us the need to decide in advance how a Congressional Term Limit  Amendment should be worded or constructed, and that we must focus on a single version of the bill to be voted on, to prevent Congress from pulling that stunt the next time around. That’s what I want to talk about today.

During the past year I have been mulling around a variety of term liimit formats,and have slowly come ‘round to the thinking that perhaps the fundamental problem which provokes us to call for Congressional Term Limits is that the single-minded pursuit by our professional politicians for reelection success (now at 99%!), makes it very  clear that all their behavior, demonstrated by their TV face time, their name-recognition efforts, their childish fingerpointing both ways across the aisle,
makes us wonder if any real legislating is going on.

As a matter of fact, more and more stories are beginning to come out about Congress not even reading most of the bills they vote on, only relying on their staffs to tell them which way to vote so that their reelection is more assured.

In other words, “It’s reelections, stupid!”

If this is so, and I firmly believe that it is,  then it appears that we, the voters, have to consider the virtue of making all legislative offices single term jobs, or close to it. Under such circumstances, the incumbent legislator would be substantially free of any concern for reelection, which frees him from having to cozy up to various special interests for donations to his reelection campaign fund. Thus, much more legislation might be determined on its merits for the country, instead of who is paying for it.

Of course, during his single term he can certainly cultivate special interest donations to use in his next campaign for some other job, but it certainly is going to be far more difficult to make bribed promises for a nebulous ‘next run’.

This would be very close to eliminating politics as a “career’ type of job, a truly worthy goal.

This then brings us to the question of how the House and Senate should be term limited.

For the Senate, which already serves for 6 years per term, a single term appears to be a sufficiently
long enough period to do a sound job, and then to move on. Obviously, when all Senators are single termers, seniority goes out the window, merit and principle get a reasonable chance to shine, and better legislation results. Enough said!

For the House on the other hand, the 2 year constitutional term is painfully brief. This is the so-called ‘people’s house’, where the Founders decided to make seats turn over relatively frequently so as to force representatives to be more in touch with the voters. We might consider two alternatives: one way could be to lengthen the single term to make it more worthwhile office to seek; and a second way could be to allow it to be a 3 term limit, a reasonable compromise.

To lengthen the single term to 3, 4, or 6 years would make the ‘people’s house’ too similar to the Senate, destroying its chief distinction from the Senate. Therefore, I would opt for the second alternative of allowing the House to be a reelectable seat for a maximum 3 terms.

In summary, I suggest that the Congressional Term Limit Amendment be worded as follows:

Members of the Senate shall serve for a maximum of one term of 6 years. Members of the House shall serve for a term of 2 years, and may be reelected for a maximum of 3 terms.

Remember, our president is term limited, more and more governors are term limited, more and more state legislatures are term limited, as are a great many city councils and mayors.

WHY NOT CONGRESS?!!!

Nelson Lee Walker
http://tenurecorrupts.com