David Nebenzahl wrote:

Eggs-zactly!

WTF is it with all this hoo-ha about term limits and incumbents? In
addition to the observation you made, it turns out that we already
have term limits, and a way to deal with incumbents who ought to be
removed from office: they're called ...

ELECTIONS!


Nope. I'm in Texas. No matter how hard I work or how often I vote, I can't
do anything about Harry Reid or Chuck Schumer. Their votes affect ME, but my
vote has no effect on them.


(The *real* problem is getting $$$$ out of elections[1], which of
course we've done practically nothing about. Can you say "publicly
financed elections"?)

Nonsense. There's too LITTLE money spent on elections. Some wag figured out
we spend more on potato chips than we do on presidential elections. George
Will proposed three simple rules for campaign finance:
1. No foreign contributions,
2. No cash, and
3. Instant, public, reporting.

If a voter doesn't want to vote for a candidate that takes 95% of his
campaign funding from the rutabaga industry, or if the voter supports the
hand-picked and financed pawn of the Aircraft Propeller Manufacturer's
Association, he can make his decision based on the support the candidate
receives. If, for example, a voter sees that the Sierra Club (or the NRA or
the ACLU, etc.) promotes a candidate, the voter can easily make the
determination that a group knows more about, and favors, the candidate. To
the degree, then, that the voter agrees with the aim of the supporting
group, the voter can make a better decision about the candidate.



[1] Of course, the recent Supreme Court decision (Citizens United v.
Federal Election Commission) sends us in the completely wrong
direction here.

The Supreme Court held that people who have banded together and pooled their
money to support a candidate are exercising a constitutionally-protected
form of political support and speech. Absent that ruling groups as diverse
as the ACLU and the NRA could not support the candidacy of people friendly
to their cause.

A politician needs two things to get elected: support of the voters and
money. Money (i.e., "special interests") is the counterpoint to mob rule.
California, to a significant degree, is a "mob rule" state where all manner
of wacky propositions find their way onto the ballot - and get adopted. For
example, a proposal to limit the number of children in a classroom to, say,
25, sound good to the general public but may have profound, and expensive,
consequences.