Congressional Term Limits

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Congressional Term Limits: Cutting Careerism Out of Congress
History dictates that America’s Founding Fathers set forth to establish a government that represents the people by Congress and an election process by which the citizens would have a voice. Today, that voice has diminished because of the threat facing the legislative branch: careerism. This has caused the American populace to perceive Congress as a broken institution that fails to do its fundamental job, thereby undermining the voice of the people and the concept of democracy. These notions stem from careerist politicians, who focus less on legislation and more on their careers for reelection. Additionally, these politicians possess incumbent advantages, which discourages new challengers and magnifies the lack of accurate representation in Congress. Congress was designed to be the closest government institution to its citizenry,
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Seniority is the gatekeeper of achieving a seat in Congress because a senior legislator wields more influence and resources from their time in office, thereby discouraging new challengers. Additionally, the fact that government finances an incumbent’s campaign is an unnecessary obstacle that challengers need to overcome to win the seat. Furthermore, pork-barreling benefits the voters’ district and, instead of focusing on the national interest, incumbents induce their voters to profit from public goods. With an extremely low turnover rate of 10%, senior incumbents enjoy retaining their seats because of these benefits, weakening an ethical democracy (T. Phillips). Term limits would give voters more delegate choices by increasing competition and increase realistic representation in elections. The limitations would support a more egalitarian proposal by reducing opportunity costs of the challengers and eliminating some of the incumbent advantages careerists