Those of a certain age will remember Jimmy Quillen, who represented East Tennessee in the House of Representative from 1963 to 1997.  His 34-year term was notable for good constituent service – and nothing else.  He was the quintessential back-bencher.  One anonymous Republican colleague was reported to have said (good – naturedly) that Quillen “couldn’t organize a one-car funeral”, which is why, in spite of his seniority, he never chaired a House committee.  In 34 years, he introduced a total of 3 bills, voted the way the leadership told him to vote, made sure that his office straightened out Grandma’s Social Security problems, rarely said or did anything the least bit controversial, and, to head off challenges to his sinecure, made sure that every politician in East Tennessee was in his debt.  Born in modest circumstances, he retired a multimillionaire.

There is something to be said for a politician who doesn’t do much in office.  At least he’s doing little or no harm, which is more than can be said of many overly-ambitious legislators convinced that they know all the answers to the nation’s problems, and have the taxpayers and the full faith and credit of the U.S. government to pay for their solutions.

The truth of the matter is, though, that both of these types are excellent arguments for term limits.

The United States was conceived as, and in large part remains, an experiment in self-government.  Government at every level was intended to do only what people couldn’t do for themselves.  It’s self-evident that that leaves plenty for government to do, from building roads to policing to national defense.  What’s not self-evident is what roads should be built, what the police need to concern themselves with, or when and with whom we should go to war.

Do we really want to leave such critical decisions to amiable drones like Jimmy Quillen, or to over-eager ideologues like Bernie Sanders?  I think not – but the fact is that, every now and then, the people in their wisdom (or lack thereof) elect just such a person.  Once in office, experience proves that they are awfully hard to get rid of.  The electorate almost always returns an incumbent to office except in unusual circumstances – a serious personal scandal, a “wave year” of widespread dissatisfaction, or a once-in-a-lifetime political realignment.  Simple incompetence, overweening ambition or a little “honest” graft rarely does the trick.

It’s not for nothing that Churchill quipped that democracy is the worst form of government ever devised, except for all the others.  Fortunately, we don’t live in a democracy, we live in a democratic republic.  The Founders were well aware of the shortcomings of democracy.  If you doubt it, see The Federalist Papers, written by Alexander Hamilton, James Madison and John Jay (together, “Publius”), which contains a withering critique of democracy.  In a tour-de-force of historical analysis, they demonstrated that democracies are highly unstable and always, in every case of which there is any record, rapidly descend into tyranny.  Instead, Publius maintained that, while the ultimate source of governing authority must be the people, governance is best carried out by those who have shown themselves capable through their accomplishments and life experience.  Thus, the minimum age requirements for Representatives (25), Senators (30) and the President (35), and other features that dampen or limit unbridled democracy, as in the First Amendment’s prohibitions against restrictions on freedom of speech and religion.  In fact, the entire structure of the Constitution is designed to frustrate and moderate the popular passions of the moment, no matter how loud, vehement or widespread the demands.

The Founders expected that highly-accomplished citizens would consider public service a not-very-pleasant responsibility, a duty to be assumed only after demonstrating competence and ability in the private world, and gladly laid down after the duty had been done.  Clearly, that was naïve, or perhaps self-serving.  The will to power is strong in some people, so strong that it overrides the best of intentions and common sense; in others, power is the road to personal enrichment and/or the satisfaction of ideological ambitions.  The Founders either did not anticipate the career politician or misjudged his impact on the nation.  It is one of the great failings of the Constitution.

But until the middle of the 20^th century, it was a failing with little practical effect.  Shorter lifespans tended to limit the careers of politicians, both the unambitious drones and the over-ambitious radicals.  The federal government was small and remote from the everyday affairs of the people, just the way they liked it.  A little corruption and self-dealing was a small price to pay for the government staying out of the way. With the profoundly important exception of slavery and the Civil War and its (still-continuing) aftermath, it was a tolerable arrangement; in a little over 100 years, the nation transformed itself from a nearly-bankrupt outpost on the edge of the world to a juggernaut of staggering wealth and seemingly-inexhaustible resources.

With wealth and power came national responsibilities and changed expectations.  With science and technology came increased lifespans and ever-greater expectations – and ever-increasing dangers.  The seduction of power has never been greater – or the consequences of failure to use it wisely so devastating.  Prior to the 20^th century, the idea of a global recession or a truly global war or ideology-inspired global terrorism was nonsensical; now, it’s inescapable. 

And we’re willing to leave the decisions about such things to long-lived mediocrities like Jimmy Quillen and unhinged radicals like Bernie Sanders?

The nation recognized the danger insofar as the presidency is concerned, and dealt with it by instituting the 22^nd Amendment, limiting the president to 2 terms.  What it has not yet dealt with is the danger of unlimited terms for legislators.

But, the argument goes, the concentrated power of the presidency is one thing, the diffuse power in the Senate and House something altogether different.  Well…Within those institutions, a handful of leaders actually wield most of the power, and it’s immense.  The Speaker of the House and Senate Majority Leader, through their ability to control the agendas of those bodies, are powerful enough to frustrate the program of any president and to single-handedly stop almost any legislation.  Most of the work of a legislature is done in committee, which gives the committee chairmen great power because of their control of the agenda.  And because seniority plays such a large role in deciding who receives the plum assignments, the longer a legislator is in office, the more powerful he becomes – almost regardless of ability or ideology.

This is profoundly anti-democratic.  As things stand, it’s quite possible for a single, out-of-step legislative district to set the course of the nation by repeatedly returning an out-of-step Congressman to Washington.  There, by default, he accumulates ever-greater power and, to insure re-election by his out-of-step electorate, has every reason to use it to frustrate the will of the rest of the country.  There is no problem with an ideologue or ossified bigot pursuing his private agenda when what’s at stake is his private affairs – that right is enshrined in the First Amendment – but the same is not true when his personal fixation negatively affects the entire nation through the abuse of his official position.  And there is nothing in law or custom to prevent it; in fact, just the opposite.

A seemingly stronger argument is that a constant parade of new, inexperienced legislators would inevitably give more power to bureaucrats and lobbyists, who would use their positions, experience and expertise to, effectively, lead Congress around by the nose.  The argument regarding the so-called “Deep State” has been given additional potency by the machinations surrounding the 2016 election.  It’s becoming clearer by the day that the Justice Department, the FBI and possibly other agencies abused their power to thwart Donald Trump’s election.  Furthermore, since the election a clandestine but well-documented “Resistance” has been at work throughout the government to sabotage his agenda.  (As an aside, Trump’s inability to stop the insurrection within his own administration shows how poorly prepared he was for the job, and how inept his political appointees have been.)  As for lobbyists, in spite of the fact that the vast majority are as honest as the day is long and perform a valuable service for their clients and the nation, there are enough bad actors in their ranks that their reputation is not wholly undeserved.

A good argument, but not convincing.  What’s been described are intractable problems with any government, regardless of its type, size, or composition, rooted not in the particular circumstances or constitution of American government, but deep within human nature and the nature of government itself.  Wise leaders need and will have knowledgeable advisers whom they trust and to whom they will listen; the trick is to know who to trust, and when.  Expertise is needed if informed decisions are to be made, and it would be naïve not to expect experts to take advantage of their knowledge and situation to advance their own interests and agendas.  It’s good, for example, that, somewhere deep within the bowels of the State Department, or somewhere in a think tank out on the Beltway, there is someone who knows everything there is to know about Tibet and China, who speaks the languages and knows the players, and who can speak authoritatively to our decision-makers; but it’s necessary for his bosses to know if that person has a “Free Tibet!” bumper sticker on his car, or is chummy with the bureaucrats and soldiers charged with assimilating Tibet into the Chinese state.  His expert advice, valuable as it is, must be considered in light of his own biases and shortcomings.

That doesn’t argue against expertise or experts, who are as necessary as sunshine and rain.  It argues for hard-headed leaders with broad general knowledge and a wide streak of skepticism, strong, tough, smart and confident enough to ask hard questions and demand straight answers.  It argues for leaders clever enough to use the Deep State and lobbyists for their own purposes, rather than the other way around.  And since we’re dealing with human beings on both sides of the table, there will be corruption; no amount of wishful thinking will solve that problem; and that argues for vigorous oversight, aggressive prosecution, and harsh punishment to deter all but the most venal. 

In the end, concerns about the power of lobbyists and bureaucrats aren’t an argument against term limits, but beside the point.  They are necessary, and as much a part of governance (in contrast to “government”) as elected officials. What’s needed is elected officials better able to resist the ministrations of bureaucrats and lobbyists; but, as we’ve seen, long service in government is no guarantee of that. And it may be that long service actually increases susceptibility to ministrations; those who enjoy power like to be stroked, cajoled, and kow-towed to, and familiarity, rather than breeding contempt, breeds obligation.  Would that not be less of a problem for accomplished, experienced men and women who knew that they would be leaving government in a few years, and knew that they would have to deal with the consequences of their decisions out in the real world as private citizens once again?

So leave aside the lobbyists and Deep State.  Which leaves the concerns over the dunces, the radicals, and the ossified.  There seems to be no answer for them except to limit their ability to do harm – and no practical way to do that other than to limit their time in office.  Yes, that would limit the terms of wise and competent legislators, too – but it can be reasonably expected that they will have little difficulty putting their gifts and experience to good if not better use in the private world, where it’s needed just as badly as in government.

Concerns over limiting the democratic choice of their constituents are misplaced.  The Founders were certainly not infatuated with democracy, however much they believed that government must be rooted in popular consent.  They were far more concerned with preventing or ameliorating the manifest abuses and failures of democracy.  And they were wise enough to know that they were fallible and would make mistakes, and that times would change; they knew that the basic law they laid down would need to be changed from time to time, as it has been 37 times to date. 

If the Founders were able to time-travel to the current day, would the situation they see now convince them that failing to include term limits was a mistake that needs to fixed?  At the risk of seeming impertinent, yes, I think they would.

• Kenneth D. Gough  © 2020