General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: a petition to ban pensions for federally elected officials [View all]wickerwoman
(5,662 posts)do you want your brain surgery performed by someone who does a two year rotation and then goes on to something else, or do you want it performed by someone who has done the same job for 30-40-50 years?
I think we forget in America that legislating- creating laws that have huge impacts on millions of peoples' lives- actually involves a bit more than writing your first thoughts down on a piece of paper and screaming bloody murder until everyone else accepts them. You need to understand the technical side of the issue, understand people's values in respect of it, forecast what the future impact will be, weigh all of the possible alternatives to see if your proposal is the most efficient and effective, understand how the proposal will sit within the context of other federal laws, state laws and international treaties and obligations, call on a network that can take decades to develop to find support, know how to negotiate effectively for a good outcome, etc.
Why do we have gridlock in Congress? Because we elect yahoos every two years whose only priority is getting reelected- not on proposing real solutions, learning about and understanding the issues in an intellectually honest way, working together, learning from the mistakes, building relationships, etc.
We had more effective governance before the fad for term limits came in in the 1990s. If the people wanted to elect Roosevelt ten times in a row that should have been their prerogative.