Another thing Tom Steyer is wrong about
Proponents of term limits are either naive or cynical — sometimes both
The Iowa caucuses are on the horizon and impeachment is in the news, but let’s set those aside to talk about something a little less urgent — yet still worthy of scorn: term limits.
A favorite of many would-be reformers, the call to limit legislative tenure is popular with a majority of Americans, who tend to dislike and distrust Congress. The Republican Party included term limits in its 1988 and 1992 national platforms, as well as in its “Contract With America” before the 1994 congressional elections. More recent support comes from President Donald Trump, who endorsed them during his 2016 campaign for president (although he likes to joke about serving past two terms).
Right now, the loudest voice for term limits is Tom Steyer, a billionaire political activist and candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination. He has put them at the center of his campaign, part of his plan to reform the government in Washington.
He wants a 12-year total limit for lawmakers: two terms in the Senate, six terms in the House or some combination of the two. Mr. Steyer’s website states that “our elected officials are out of touch with our needs and are more focused on getting reelected than actually doing what’s right” and that “the longer an elected official stays in office, the more beholden they become to corporate backers and special interest groups.”
Mr. Steyer is emphatic on this point. “The American people are demanding term limits!” he tweeted last weekend. “Serving in Congress shouldn’t be a lifetime appointment.”
This sentiment — born of frustration with corruption, gridlock and polarization — is understandable. But Mr. Steyer, and the threequarters of Americans who support term limits, are mistaken. Far from fixing Congress, term limits would undermine its power and supercharge the worst problems in Washington.
It’s worth saying, to start, that the “problem” of long-serving lawmakers — the problem a term limit purports to solve — isn’t actually a problem at all. Congressional scholar Josh Huder notes that just 35 senators (and less than a third of the House) have served 10 years or more. Likewise, according to a recent report from the Congressional Research Service, average tenure in the past two Congresses sat at roughly 10 years. Long-serving lawmakers are highly visible — often because they occupy key leadership roles — but they aren’t particularly common.
Not that this would be a problem, even if it were true. Time in office doesn’t inexorably lead to poor performance — just the reverse. It’s no coincidence that some of the most effective lawmakers in American history — architects of epochal bills like the Social Security Act and the National Labor Relations Act — served for decades, accumulating political and legislative expertise. And if voters want to reward an effective legislator or representative with more time in office, they should have that right. Forced retirement cuts against the idea that voters have an absolute right to choose their representatives.
If the goal of term limits is to bring new faces and fresh ideas to Washington, then the solution isn’t a blanket restriction on all lawmakers. The solution is more competition, to make it easier for interested people to run for office and win. There are ways to make that happen. Nonpartisan redistricting in all 50 states would break partisan gerrymandering and force incumbents to compete for votes. Public financing of campaigns would give challengers a fighting chance in a general election. And if part of the problem is low turnout, you can lower the barrier to voting and increase participation through universal registration and mail-in balloting.
In addition to making career politicians extinct, term limits are also supposed to limit corruption, gridlock and polarization. Limit the tenure of office, goes the argument, and lawmakers will be on a deadline to get something done. End the unceasing pressure of re-election, and there’s no incentive to raise money from wealthy interests. Mandate turnover, and there’s no chance to build entrenched power.
None of that is true. Several states, including Mr. Steyer’s own, California, have strict term limits for lawmakers. We can see how they play out. And the results aren’t good. In term-limited states, constant turnover leaves legislatures with little expertise. Power is distributed away from the statehouse and to other institutional actors, from governors — who are also term-limited, but use state bureaucracies and party machinery to work their will — to large interest groups and lobbyists.
That last point is critical. Lawmaking is difficult, and expertise has to come from somewhere. In the absence of experienced legislators, that expertise comes from interested actors, people who know something because they need something. States with term limits produce representatives who have to rely on industry interests for knowledge, expertise and institutional memory. Instead of inhibiting corporate influence, term limits sometimes lead to tighter relationships between lawmakers and outside interests.
A term-limited Congress, in all likelihood, is a weak Congress, where inexperienced members are bullied by the White House and even more dependent on lobbyists, where there’s little capacity to devise legislation and less interest in long-term problem solving. It’s easy to understand why anti-government conservatives would want to limit time in office — they don’t want experienced lawmakers. As a first-time candidate for office running for the presidency, Mr. Steyer may not appreciate the benefits of political experience. But as an ostensible progressive, he should also understand the importance of a strong, capable legislature.