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Term Limits from the Grass Roots
Constitution Day, 2009 | cc2k

Posted on 09/17/2009 8:29:25 AM PDT by cc2k

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To: Truthsearcher
The incumbents have rigged the game in their favor to make it virtually impossible to kick them out.

Unfortunately this is very true. I believe this is a major reason why is it so difficult for an independent to get elected.
21 posted on 09/17/2009 2:48:03 PM PDT by algernonpj (He who pays the piper . . .)
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To: cc2k

Term Limits...what brought us to this discussion? How about $158,000 salaries? What about a pension that pays them much of that same salarie once out of office. Oh, and did I mention their health care?

We give candidates incentive to run for office for all the wrong reasons. Take away those reasons and flush out the statesmen..you know those ones who run to actually make a difference.

You get a pledge from a prospective candidate to reduce the salary to the median income for white males (48,000); fund their own retirements like the rest of us; and allow them the same pay-in health care coverage as any other normal Joe. If they even flinch or stall, turn the other way and walk.

The beautiful irony here is that we will NEVER find good candidates if the pay is too lucrative and the benefits to good to turn down. Ask yourself this: Who would want to serve office with what I have described? Not the greedy, that is for sure.


22 posted on 10/01/2009 7:03:25 PM PDT by Arrowhead
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To: Arrowhead
You make some good points. Someone last weekend suggested an interesting solution for this problem. It would take a constitutional amendment to implement (so it will probably never happen) but it was an interesting thought. The solution was amend the Constitution as follows:

Representatives and Senators shall be employees of the State that they represent. Their compensation, salaries and benefits shall be set by the legislature of their state.

This does a couple of things. First, it put them out of the business of setting their own pay and benefits plans. And it moves those decisions a step closer to We The People.

But even more, it reminds them who they are supposed to be representing. It doesn’t undo the 17th amendment, but it still gives a little reminder with the paycheck or direct deposit stub that "Hey, you work for us back home."


From the desk of
cc2k:

23 posted on 10/01/2009 7:53:02 PM PDT by cc2k (Are you better off today than you were $4,000,000,000,000 ago?)
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To: cc2k

Now THAT is the best idea I have heard yet! So good in fact, we should pursue it! You know who that fella is? When I pass this knowledge on I want to be sure and give proper credit.


24 posted on 10/03/2009 9:08:41 AM PDT by Arrowhead
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To: cc2k

Unfortunately, excess incumbency is NOT JUST a voter problem. It is caused by LOCAL redistricting that strongly favors incumbency, and rewards longevity with increasingly friendly wards and precincts.

The only cure for that is to outlaw “Gerrymandering” - the creation of highly distorted, meandering districts that accumulate tiny pockets of support within a sea of opposition. The only mechanism I thought of would be to set a legal maximum ratio of district boundary to district area. Mathematically, the minimum would be 2xPi - about 6.284 - for an almost perfectly circular district. I don’t know what the maximum should be, but my own district is probably in triple digits.


25 posted on 10/07/2009 9:52:51 AM PDT by MainFrame65 (The US Senate: World's greatest PREVARICATIVE body!.)
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To: MainFrame65
MainFrame65 wrote:
Unfortunately, excess incumbency is NOT JUST a voter problem. It is caused by LOCAL redistricting that strongly favors incumbency, and rewards longevity with increasingly friendly wards and precincts.

I agree with you that gerrymandering is a problem. But I don’t buy that this isn’t just another problem the voters need to fix. Voters can fix that too.

Who draws the gerrymandered districts? And how do they get the authority to do that? Are they perhaps elected?


From the desk of
cc2k:

26 posted on 10/07/2009 10:55:40 AM PDT by cc2k (Are you better off today than you were $4,000,000,000,000 ago?)
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To: cc2k

True, we DO elect the state and local reps that do the gerrymandering, but in turn they immediately become the incumbents, whose primary interest is the next election. That is the reason that objective, enforceable, LEGAL barriers to it must be created - and the legislatures will NEVER do it for us.


27 posted on 10/08/2009 7:10:38 AM PDT by MainFrame65 (The US Senate: World's greatest PREVARICATIVE body!.)
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