In high school I participated in Student Congress - a debate event where we would present bills, give speeches, vote, and even campaign to become Speaker for part of the “session.” The hot topics at the State and National competitions (1996 - 1998) were animal rights, campaign finance, cigarette taxes, environmental issues/ pollution, and gay marraige.
The first bill I wrote was for an amendment to the Constitution that would eliminate the electoral college. Everyone seemed to enjoy debating this one, although EVERY time we voted after the debate, it passed. It seems that even as high school kids we didn’t see much need for an institution created by the “elite” because they considered the populus too uneducated to make a good decision.
Another issue that came up was instituting term limits for senators and congresspeople. There were some great points brought up during the debates:
- Assist with tax reform. A big obstacle to a simpler flat tax is “pet deductions” such as the mortgage interest deduction. While we all love this one, it was a concept designed by Congress to benefit themselves because they typically owned two homes - one at home and one in Washington.
- Elimination of Career Politicians and beaucracy. Many congressional “systems” or processes are set up by seniority rather than merit basis - this needs to change. In addition, the incentives of voting subsequent pay increases and automatic vesting in the federal pension system would be reduced. Arlen Specter’s recent party change highlights the problem with having “representatives” who would do anything to stay in congress instead of supporting themselves.
- Reduced effect of lobbyists (not all lobbying is bad).
- Increase in governmental brain trust. I sincerely doubt that we have the most qualified, smartest, most talented administrators in Washington now, and how many of them have been there for at least 10 years? How many of them have other business, scientific, etc experience? If we want new solutions, we need new ideas/people.
Then again, if these changes had really happened back in 1998, we’d have had Al “Climate Crisis” Gore for at least 4 years (he won the 2000 popular vote by approx 543K).
Just curious what you think? Should we get rid of the electoral college and should we institute term limits? Why or why not?
Last 3 posts by Eric B.
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I don’t know. I have always been totally against the electoral college. But after going through this last election and seeing how quickly populous statements can sway people, the electoral system suddenly makes some amount of sense.
I totally agree about term limits. I do not care for life-politicians. I think the salary should be equivalent to a normal part-time job. Politicians should not be able to simply live off their government salary. Political positions should be more like volunteer positions that happen to pay a little in compensation for time. Of course, people could argue that this will favor wealthy individuals who have the means to devote time to politics without having to worry about work.