Term Limits

SOLVED  BY  THE  PLAN  THAT  MODIFIES  FEDERALISM

A preponderance of astute political observers look at the term-limit problem and think there must be a way to solve it.  The modified federalism plan solves it by reducing the district to community-size.  A community habitually elects its sheriff and changes sheriffs without the term-limit problem.  They have no need for partisan haranguing of voters over their political belief systems in order to choose a sheriff.

Political scientists should be critically studying the interactive process between voters and their local candidates. Voters should not be expected to make wise choices from among candidates who do not live in their community.  The representatives that run the federation of states should be from those local community districts.

Suppose it were determined scientifically that a grid of districts with 40,000 people each was smooth running and successful.  And that a grid of districts of the 700,000 size created confusion and conflict.      Common sense would dictate that we choose the system of 40,000.  Please note that today’s U.S. Congress is totally made up of officials coming from either the 700,000 size districts or from state-wide districts many times larger.  Their 98% reelection rate is due to campaign garbage that does not impress local voters who have neighborhood relationships with the candidates.

There is a dirty little secret that politicians discovered very early: Expand the size of one’s district to increase one’s legislative clout.  The Constitution’s Article 1, Section 2 contains an obscure statement that a district should not be formed with less than 30,000 persons.  The actual size the Constitution started with was closer to 40,000 persons.  After each ten-year census, the reps from these districts have assumed authority to consolidate districts until districts are now 700,000 pop each.  That is seventeen times their original size.

Ask any legislator about “district reform,” and the response is, “I took an oath to uphold the Constitution and cannot do anything about it.”  Then, how did you guys manage to increase its size seventeen fold?  But the problem is five times worse than that because every voter is saddled with five districts and their reps, producing all manner of pecking orders---all supposedly in a federalism of equals.  We live in a representative fairyland of make believe.

The electorate needs only one standardized grid of districts to operate the entire federation of State Governments and the one in Washington, D.C.  That is what the modified federalism plan does.