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After years of reflexively embracing their populist simplicity, I have soured on term limits for elected officials. In fact, I’ve been writing against term limits for several years, now.
Why?
“Term limits is all for show,” I wrote five-and-a-half years ago. “Politicians rush to embrace it – but then refuse to hold themselves accountable to the standard they claim to endorse. They use the issue for electoral gain, with no intention of ever passing term limits – and certainly no intention of ever limiting their own terms in office.”
“Such populist bloviation is opportunistic and hypocritical,” I added.
Unless a politician is campaigning on self-limiting their own terms in office – like former South Carolina governor Mark Sanford did – they should probably STFU about term limits.
There’s a flip side to that argument, though: Self-limiting is effectively neutering oneself prior to taking office – trying to fight the political establishment with one hand tied behind your back.
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Anyway, term limits remain a cause célèbre for politicians … and why not? Overwhelming majorities of Americans embrace them … in concept, anyway. Term limits are the definition of low-hanging political fruit … which is probably why so many aspiring politicians grab at them.
Enter Nikki Haley, another former South Carolina governor and a current “Republican” candidate for the American presidency. This week, Haley endorsed term limits – signing a pledge propagated by U.S. Term Limits, the nation’s leading advocacy group on this issue.
Per the organization, Haley is backing a congressional amendment which would limit politicians to serving no more than three terms in the U.S. House and two terms in the U.S. Senate. The amendment’s lead sponsor in the House is South Carolina’s own Ralph Norman. In the U.S. Senate, the measure is being advanced by Ted Cruz.
Haley further vowed she would “work to secure state ratification of the (term limits) amendment to the U.S. Constitution.”
Haley is “the first 2024 presidential candidate to date, of any party, to sign the pledge,” according to a release from U.S. Term Limits.
(Click to View)
(Via: U.S. Term Limits)
“Our Founding Fathers did not want people to make careers out of government,” Haley said. “Yet our current D.C. politicians have made a lucrative career of long-term service with some members of Congress serving most of their life in Congress. The result of this dysfunction speaks for itself. We must and can do better and that is why I will support passage of the U.S. Term Limits amendment when I am in the White House.”
While Haley is the first candidate to sign this pledge, she likely won’t be the last. Former U.S. president Donald Trump made term limits a key plank of his populist 2016 presidential bid – and Florida governor Ron DeSantis has expressed support
“If we could term limit members of Congress, you would be able to bring in new blood, you’d be able to bring in new ideas, people would have an incentive to go in and say ‘hey, I may only have three terms in the U.S. House, I wanna get something done,’ instead of kind of doing what they’ve gone into a big morass in terms of how they do business,” DeSantis said last March at a bill signing ceremony in St. Petersburg.
What do you think of term limits? Vote in our poll and post your thoughts in our always-engaging comments section below …
Do you support term limits for members of the U.S. Congress?
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR ...
Will Folks is the founding editor of the news outlet you are currently reading. Prior to founding FITSNews, he served as press secretary to the governor of South Carolina. He lives in the Midlands region of the state with his wife and seven children.
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10 comments
The founding fathers didn’t want women to vote or hold office.
Be consistent Republicans.
Always gotta laugh when female and minority Republicans speak of the Founding Fathers motives.
As with many things, they had that right. Look at how this country has gone to hell since women got the right to vote.
Bless your heart, boy.
White males that haves controlled the South East have caused your region to “go to hell”, as you say.
Why do white men in Republican run States always think “ this country has gone to hell”?
It because you live in a shitty Red State, dummies!
Thank god trump will be the Republican candidate for President.
He’s going to get beaten so bad, it will make 2020 look like a Blue puddle.
Republicans are done on the national level. trump is the DNC’s dream!
“On January 17, 2021, Norman sent a text message to White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows asking him to urge President Trump to invoke martial law (misspelling it ‘Marshall Law’) to prevent the inauguration of Joseph Biden.” IMHO that is all you need to know about Ralph Norman.
12 years for a senator and 6 for a representative. Sounds biased.
Sounds good. So let’s add up her years in the State House, as Governor, and as UN Ambassador and call it a day for her.
Haley is all about rules and pledges as long as they don’t apply to her.