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Comments on: Former eBay CEO preps for California power post?

Term limits 

Posted Tuesday 6th January 2009 02:22 GMT

"...a position that becomes vacant in two years, thanks to US term limits."

Let's not make the US sound too good. Apparently governors have term limits (I'm somewhat ashamed to admit that I did not know that; go US education system!), and the President has term limits. Why is it, then, that the in-between people, Congress (Senators and Representatives), do not have term limits? Enacting term limits for Congress would be one huge step in the right direction of cutting down on corruption and bribery (oh, sorry, "lobbying"). But since these are the people that make the laws, they will never have term limits (just as you will never see them voting down a pay raise which they are legally allowed to give themselves with no oversight).

Term limits 

Posted Tuesday 6th January 2009 18:04 GMT

Minor correction: Term limits for governorships are determined by the individual states, not the United States as a whole. California's governor is limited to two terms (like the US President is), but that's not the rule across the board.

And Chris C., there's two caveats to term limits for congressional representation. First, rules of Congress (especially in the Senate) give power and ranking based on seniority, so any state that chose to pull its members after a few years of service would find itself at a disadvantage at the federal trough. Second, term limits prevent members from gaining expertise and institutional memory. Bribery and lobbying sucks, but it might suck a lot more if neophyte federal legislators ran oversight committees.

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