Argument: Term-limited politicians often commit less to office

Support

Jay Newton-Small. “Term Limits: No Magic Pill for Washington’s Woes.” Time. Feb. 23rd, 2010: “politicians who are term-limited often just use their temporary offices as stepping stones and don’t invest in the institutions.” Maybe they’ll move around from local to state to national government but maybe never really dig in at any level.

15 state legislatures and 36 governors were subject to term limits in 2010. “The experience in states, including California, has been negative: assembly members look to run for the state senate or Congress, Senators look for congressional seats, or lawmakers look out for cushy jobs in the private sector afterward, thus giving more power to the permanent staff. Bad idea,” says Norm Ornstein, a congressional scholar at the conservative American Enterprise Institute and co-author of The Broken Branch: How Congress Is Failing America and How to Get It Back on Track.[1]