About That Constitutional Amendment Trump Randomly Supports Now

Everybody agrees that Congress is a problem. But imposing term limits would do nothing to solve it.

Trump's proposal to drain the swamp would merely recycle the water.

Trump’s proposal to drain the swamp would merely recycle the water.

I’m writing this before the final presidential debate, so by the time you are reading this Trump has (likely) proposed limiting voting rights to white males for this election until we can “figure out what’s going on.” But I don’t want us to skip over the fact that a nominee for President of the United States proposed to constitutional amendment as a seeming afterthought, three weeks before election day.

From Time:

“If I’m elected president, I will push for a Constitutional amendment to impose term limits on all members of Congress,” Trump said at a campaign rally in Colorado Springs, Colorado, Tuesday afternoon, to sustained cheers from the crowd. “Right? They’ve been talking about that for years.”

At least his latest scheme only requires changing the Constitution, instead of saying “Now witness the firepower of this fully armed and operational battle station,” and incinerating the document with a space death ray.

As Trump only recently found out, we have, in fact, been talking about a term-limits amendment for years. Trump’s proposal has no specifics on what the limit of the terms might be — there are literally two words in “term limit” and Trump failed to define one of them. But the amendment first came to national consciousness during Newt Gingrich’s “Contract With America,” and so the smart money would be on a limit of 12 years. That’s two terms for Senators and six terms for members of the House.

If you know how the Constitution is amended, you know why this amendment will likely never happen. You need two-thirds of both the House and the Senate to approve an amendment… which means you need well over 300 politicians in Washington to vote to limit their own political futures. Good luck with that!

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Beyond that, you need to get 75% of the states to ratify an amendment. Right now, we don’t even have 75% of states that impose term limits on their own statewide elected officials. Trump’s idea to “drain the swamp” is no more realistic than his plans to “build a wall.” I’m thinking the alleged real-estate mogul should stay away from terraforming analogies.

If the amendment was politically possible, it would still be a bad idea. We don’t need term limits because we can literally END TERMS for any Congressperson we don’t like at the ballot box.

Pro-term limit forces argue that the power of the incumbency is so strong that voters cannot decide for themselves who should remain in power. I simply refuse to accept that. I reject the rhetoric of victimization that would render the electorate powerless to understand their own choices.

Sure, the electorate often makes terrible choices. Voters are dumb. Democracy is a barely tenable system of government. It allows the mob to impose their incompetent, mouth-breathing representatives upon we select few who are able to survive entire weeks without a Kardashian update. I write about politics and law every day and I just had to look up who the Republicans are running against my Congressman. Guess what… the answer is NOBODY. The GOP isn’t fielding a candidate. Something called the “People’s Choice Congress” is running a guy who seems to have announced his candidacy via a “letter to the editor” to the local paper. TWENTY MILLION PEOPLE live in my state! Nearly 750,000 people live in my district. But there wasn’t one other guy willing and able to mount a serious challenge for Congress. Democracy is a farce.

Everybody agrees that this is a problem. But imposing term limits would do nothing to solve it.

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Term limits do not bring in a “different kind” of politician. They don’t lead to more interesting or competitive elections. Term limits cycle us through the exact same choices as we always have, just with different hairpieces. If my Congressman was term limited out, there’d be another one who looks just like him ready to be the only guy I can reasonably vote for. Changing the name stuffed into the suit does not lead to radical political change.

You know who term limits do help? The Executive Branch. We have evidence on this. Yes… NOW WE SEE why Trump suddenly thinks term limits are a good idea. From the Washington Post (h/t Election Law Blog):

The strongest overall trend in the impact that term limits have on laws is that they have brought a fundamental shift in power from the legislative to the executive branch. When legislative terms are limited, governors and their agency staff fill the power vacuum.

Budgets are much more likely to reflect executive branch priorities after term limits. More generally, multiple surveys and case studies show that “one of the clearest effects of term limits has been to weaken legislatures at the expense of executives.”

This issue is institutional memory. The legislative process is actually quite complicated, and it takes people a while to master it. People have to learn how to get a bill through Congress, they have to build relationships and support structures. When you term-limit legislators out, it transfers that knowledge from the Congress to an Executive who can staff up with all those people who know what they’re doing and run roughshod over a group of Congressional rookies.

Imagine if your favorite football team had to switch out its quarterback every year, but defensive players got to stay for as long as they could. What would happen would be that the head coach would become even more important than he already is, while offenses sputtered against swarming, complicated defenses. You’ll note, I just destroyed the NFL and left the SEC in its place. I’ve made Nick Saban President and turned entrenched interest groups into a more terrifying defensive force than they already are.

Term limits are the answer to a question only Trump is asking: “How does the President get more power?” Those concerned with making Congress more responsive to the people would be better off getting as many people to vote in off-years as vote in the Presidential years. Except in my district, where your votes almost literally don’t matter.

Donald Trump Proposes Term Limits for Congress [TIME]
If you want a more powerful President Trump, impose term limits on Congress [Washington Post]


Elie Mystal is an editor of Above the Law and the Legal Editor for More Perfect. He can be reached @ElieNYC on Twitter, or at elie@abovethelaw.com. He’s starting to wonder if he could get 5,000 signatures to run for Congress on the “Here’s A Different Person” line.