Comment & Debate
5. Term Limits and the Need for a Citizen Legislature” CATO Handbook: “A second major reason for the need for a three-term limit is that it ensures that the majority of those serving in the House will not be far removed from their experiences in the private sector. They will bring to the policy issues of the day the common sense and practical experience of living in the real world that will lead to decisions that are truly in the public interest.
A fourth reason to support three terms over six terms is that the shorter limits are an antidote to the growing “professionalization of the legislative process. As Mark Petracca has written, “Whereas representative government aspires to maintain a proximity of sympathy and interests between representative and represented, professionalism creates authority, autonomy, and hierarchy, distancing the expert from the client. Though this distance may be necessary and functional for lawyers, nurses, physicians, accountants, and social scientists, the qualities and characteristics associated with being a `professional’ legislator run counter to the supposed goals of a representative democracy. Professionalism encourages an independence of ambition, judgment, and behavior that is squarely at odds with the inherently dependent nature of representative government.”