Answers to Most Common Negative Arguments

1. We already have term limits, because we can vote out any politician at any time.
A glib answer, but a long way from the truth. Advantages of incumbency:

A. Large war chests. Some incumbents raise more money from PACs and lobbyists outside their district/state than they do from their own constituents.

B. Name recognition, which goes with the job. This is helped by…

C. Franking, the free mailing privileges which allow members to send out campaign advertising under the guise of information reports to constituents, and

D. Ready access to electronic and print media.

All the foregoing represents tremendous disadvantages to a challenger, which are very difficult to overcome.

Read a portion of what Cleta Mitchell of the Term Limits Legal Foundation had to say before a congressional subcommittee early in 1994:

… We also know that you as incumbents have so many built-in advantages that it is almost impossible to unseat you. One of those advantages is your ability to raise election war chests from those who do business with you every day on Capitol Hill…You tell us that you can't be bought by lobbyists and PACs, and that you can take their contributions, drink their whiskey, and eat their steaks and still be independent. We think you think we just fell off the turnip truck.

Another factor which is often overlooked is that there are long-time incumbents from other states whose very presence can be extremely harmful to the country and to our own individual states. Often they have, by virtue of seniority, acquired positions of great power in the Congress. We have no say in the election and reelection of these people, who can do so much damage. (We all have our own private lists of such people, without whom the country would be much better off.) Term limits solve this problem, at least to the degree that we will know that we won't have to put up with such bad actors beyond the limits of their terms. Term limited service will attract candidates of higher caliber, once careerism is removed as a motive for candidacy.

2. With term limits we would lose experience, maturity and knowledge of the workings of Congress.
The workings of Congress need not be nearly so complex as careerists would have us think. However great pains have been exerted to give us that impression. A term-limited Congress could get the nation's business accomplished in a fraction of the time that it takes now, with all the posturing, posing, ego trips and headline-grabbing. And a term-limited Congress could streamline all the procedures. As for experience we would be better off without some of it. What is needed is experience in the real world life experiences from new blood with fresh ideas.

3. With term limits, congressional staff people would gain control.
The fallacy of that argument is that the staff people already have control. Through the years, Congress has abdicated it to them. Committee staffs write the legislation, and members' staffs read it, then tell members what's in it. Members themselves rarely read what they vote on. In a country where ignorance of the law is no excuse, members of Congress are often ignorant of many of the provisions of laws they vote on.

Congress and its members could regain control from the staffs right now, if they had the will. They don't have the will. A term limited Congress that had the will could get control of the staffs in a very short period of time. There is nothing difficult about it.

4. The biggest problem is with the bureaucracy. Term limits won't get rid of the bureaucracy.
Wrong. A term limited Congress that has the will to do so, can bring the bureaucracy down to size. An irresolute Congress built the bureaucracy. A resolute Congress can control it.

5. Term limits creates inequity in the Congress, with small states disadvantaged in favor of larger states.
If this statement had any validity it would apply in the House only. However, in actual practice smaller states have formed alliances to assure fair committee and chairmanship assignments. Candidates for term limited Congressional service would be motivated by the desire to serve, rather than the desire for power that motivates so many now. The 23 states which had placed term limits on their congressional delegations before the Supreme Court outlawed the practice — all of these disregarded this argument, regardless of size. Americans want a Congress that functions for the benefit of all its citizens, and is tired of the old pork barrel games where each member tries to outdo the others in terms of bringing treasure home at the expense of all the taxpayers. The argument does not hold water. Citizens in 23 states paid no attention to it. Neither should we.

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