Essay On Congressional Term Limits

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POS110 MW 13:00-14:15 Congressional Term Limits While members of the House of Representatives and Senators have a set length of time for each term they serve, two and six years, respectively, the amount of terms each congressman or woman can serve is, essentially, unlimited. The House of Representatives were allotted a two year term length to allow The House to react more directly to the public will, whereas the Senate, allotted a six year term, is allowed more time each term to deliberate and consider the best interest of the nation, as opposed to the immediate interest of its citizens (Hamilton 66). The idea of term limits was first enumerated in the Articles of Confederation with the statement, “no person shall be capable of being a delegate [of Congress] for more than three years, in any term of six years” (Articles of Confederation Art. 5 §2). The founding fathers considered term limits would prevent abuse of the power held by congressmen as well as prevent unending political careerism. Without those term limits proposed in The Articles of Confederation, Congress has been saturated with the careerist attitude feared by our founding fathers as well as a low turnover of representatives, moving away from the purpose of giving …show more content…

Limits placed on the amount of terms congressmen are allowed to serve would eliminate this incumbent dominance over Congress. A limited amount of incumbency should still be permitted as a respect to those Congressmen who have served well for a period, but there has to be a limit put in place somewhere. One of the issues faced with an unlimited incumbency is that when Congress members have been in the position for an excessive amount of time, they could easily fall short in utilizing analytical and objective

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