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TERM, FALLOW PERIOD AND TIME ACCRUAL LIMITS
When elections are held, one thing candidates are assessed for is
their experience. Having certain types of experience can be a plus.
Prior public office experience may illustrate the effectiveness of a
candidate. However there can be cases of having too much experience
in public office. Some members of Congress have served for
20, 30 or over 40 years. Congressional member histories
may entail previous years of public office in state or local
governments before they arrived in Congress. On the other extreme, having
little or no experience in public office can be a desired trait because
we want officials that have been outsiders to government in order to keep check
and to encourage more thinking outside of the political box. Such candidates
better ensure a citizen government with their higher-proportioned, real-world
working and life experience. Taking all this into account, we now propose a
system of term, fallow period and time accrual limits for servants of federal public office....
Index
~anchor for term link~
TERM LIMITS - As Amendment XXII puts limits on the terms of president, we ask
likewise for vice president and for the members of Congress.
VICE PRESIDENT: A person may serve as vice president in only one of two
mutually exclusive manners:
i) One may hold the office of vice president for no more than one complete full term or one
decreed full term which occurs after any duration greater than two years.
ii) One may hold the office of vice president for no more than two partial terms where each is at most two years
in duration.
Thus, one cannot log a vice-presidential record that yields any combination of full or decreed full with partial terms.
HOUSE: No person will be able to serve in the House of Representatives
whether for a full term or a decreed full term more than a prescribed number of times (2-3)* and no one is able to
serve for more than one recognized partial term.
Should one be unable to complete a term up to a certain point* because they succumb to illness
or injury or resign for honorable cause like taking care of an incapacitated family member, that
term will count as the one recognized partial term but not as a decreed full term. Otherwise, if such takes
place beyond that certain point, that term will still count as the one recognized partial term
yet also as a decreed full term. All further terms whether or not fulfilled will count as (decreed) full.
Other honorable causes may apply not listed here.
Likewise if one should serve as a replacement within a term up to a certain
point or duration*, then that term will count as the one recognized partial term but not as a decreed full term. Otherwise, if such takes
place beyond that certain point or duration, that term will still count as the one recognized partial term
yet also as a decreed full term. Here as well, all further terms whether or not fulfilled will count as (decreed) full.
* State legislatures will complete 10-year cycle determination or reviews of such upon result of Census. Those reviews are performed via a cumulative
and/or reunion manner of all the intervening state legislature incarnations up to and including the current Census legislature.
SENATE: No person will be able to serve in or be chosen for the Senate
whether for a full or decreed full term
more than once and no one is able to serve within more than two terms
in the Senate under any circumstance.
Most senatorial candidates will not be chosen more than once towards the Senate
except for situations involving at least one of the following:
Acting as a special replacement
where they serve within a term two years or less for which some other person was chosen (or)
They were the one chosen for a term and they suffered injury or illness which prevented them
from serving for over three years that term and the same three-year plus boundary holds
concerning scenarios of honorable resignation similar to the House description earlier.
Service within such terms beyond those limits makes said terms decreed full terms.
Note that someone could serve within a particular term more than once though that does not
seem to be likely.
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Should we let those who have consistently been U.S. Representatives to then serve in the U.S. Senate
and vice versa? If it is to be allowed then there should be limit such as only former
Representatives who have served at most one full House term (or have served less in duration whether decreed full
or recognized partial)
are eligible to the Senate for a full term and then no further terms in Congress allowed.
Former Senators who served just one full term (non-decreed)
are allowed at most one full-term House seat with a prerequisite fallow of 4 years and then
no further terms in Congress allowed. Former Senators who served over a full term (non-decreed)
are not eligible for House terms.
Other possible combinations or permutations concerning full, decreed full or partial Senatorial and Representative terms
should be limited to 6-8 years aggregate duration in the Congress.
~anchor for fallow link~
FALLOW PERIODS - There will be periods before or between certain served terms and public
offices where particular prospective candidates must refrain from occupying
office.
HOUSE: A required minimum 4 years fallow period between full House terms.
As well, any successive full House terms occupied after other offices will require
intermittent 4 years fallow. There should
be at least 2 years* fallow before any initial full House term.
A replacement partial-term Representative's prerequisite fallow period minimum* is
equal to the remainder of the original term that they serve within on behalf of
someone else who was chosen.
* State legislatures will complete 10-year cycle determination or reviews of whether such should be any greater upon results of Census.
Those reviews are performed via a cumulative and/or reunion manner of all the intervening state legislature incarnations up to and including the current Census legislature.
SENATE: No second full terms for Senators, thus there are no fallow periods
between such. However, candidates must not have been in any public
office at least 6 years prior to the start of their anticipated full Senate term.
A replacement partial-term Senator's prerequisite fallow period minimum is
equal to the remainder of the original term that they serve within on behalf of
someone else who was elected or appointed.
PRESIDENT: Same minimum fallow period as Senators - 6 years prior to
their first elected term unless they are fulfilling the end of current term as a replacement President. At least
four straight years sitting out of any public office is required before commencing any non-consecutive successive
term.
Candidates for President must have enough total fallow period throughout their life such that the time accrued
in public office by an eligible candidate before becoming President would not exceed half the duration from the day of their potential inauguration (or the day term begins)
back to their 20th birthday. Again, we do not apply this requirement to those who are fulfilling the end of current term as a replacement President
nor to a current President running for a consecutive term. As well, such requirement does not apply to the appointment of a President via right of choice
devolved upon the House nor to one who is to act as President through law declaring such choice or by whatever official manner of selection. However, the parameters of the
requirement are recommended.
If it is to be allowed that a President can eventually serve as a member of Congress,
then at least four successive presidential elections must have intervened since that President was
last in office as President of the United States of America.
[NOTE: Here "President" instead of "president" by style of Constitution's text.]
VICE PRESIDENT: At least 6 years prior to
any initial elected full term or any initial partial (or decreed full) term nominated and confirmed to is required.
Any successive and eligible partial term which they are nominated and confirmed to requires at least four years out of office prior.
Candidates or nominees for Vice President must have enough total fallow period throughout their life such that the time accrued
in public office by the eligible candidate or nominee before becoming Vice President would not exceed four tenths (2/5) the duration from
the day of their potential swearing-in as Vice President back to their 20th birthday.
[NOTE: Here "Vice President" instead of "vice president" by style of Constitution's text.]
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Notice that the immediate fallow period conditions effectively put an end to federal candidates running for one office
while holding another and to the inherent bias that has retained over 90% of the Congressional
incumbents repetitively in most of the more recent elections.
~anchor for time accrual link~
TIME ACCRUAL - We desire that all candidates for Congress will by the end of their
final Congressional term have held aggregate public office at most near to a third of our average working lives.
As well,
when they gain office or when they have finished a term, we want most of their working lives
to have been spent outside public office -- gathering experience in the real world while
earning a living as the more typical citizen does.
First we attempt to determine the length of a typical working life. By casual
observation, people usually begin working a few years within vicinity of 18 and become
mostly independent within a few years of 22. Thus we tag as an average start-up of
one's working life to about the age of 20. Retirement is around the age of
65, though this may change with life expectancy, one's health, personal finances, social trend
or economic conditions. So for a rough average of an individual's working life:
(65 years - 20 years) = 45 years
And taking a third of that we get:
(45 years) / 3 = 15 years
Therefore, we desire that candidates for Congress will have spent at most somewhere near 15 years in
political office by the end of their final term. Remember that is a maximum we allow. We expect
others to have served fewer years to varying degrees across the gamut before leaving Congress for good.
This along with the term and fallow specifications helps prevent serving in Congress
in an entrenched fashion and works against fulfilling political careerism in the body.
Secondly, despite all those efforts it is still possible for younger candidates to occupy Congressional
office and have at the end of their term a higher ratio of their total public office years to their real-world working
experience years. Under this plan as it is so far, even though all candidates in the end have spent
at most near a third of the rough average working life in public office, they may still have had along the way
significant periods where their public office duration was greater or equal compared to time spent in
jobs/careers or other real-life qualifications up to that point in their lives. To address this we promote
the following further restrictions which cap public office time accrued by the end of term to
40% of their spent working-life years indexed to age 20. From there, any candidate whose time out of public office
consists of substantially less real-world
working experience should be further scrutinized with some allowances made for Bachelors, Masters, Doctorates,
medical schools, charity work, child rearing, household management, administering
an estate, allowable period of civic work, etc. The greater scrutiny should apply more to the over-privileged
inheritance or spoiled celebrity types and long-term welfare recipients all with regard to their character, values, work ethic and ideology. The following table exhibits the basic restrictions:
AGGREGATE PUBLIC OFFICE
TIME ACCRUAL LIMITS
BY AGE AT END OF
CONGRESSIONAL TERM
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| Age By End of Term
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Maximum Accrued Public Office Years
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Age By End of Term
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Maximum Accrued Public Office Years
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| *25
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2
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43
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9.2
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| *26
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2.4
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44
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9.6
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| 27
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2.8
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45
|
10
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| 28
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3.2
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46
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10.4
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| 29
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3.6
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47
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10.8
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| 30
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4
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48
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11.2
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| 31
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4.4
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49
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11.6
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| 32
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4.8
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50
|
12
|
| 33
|
5.2
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51
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12.4
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| 34
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5.6
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52
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12.8
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| *35
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6
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53
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13.2
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| 36
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6.4
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54
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13.6
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| 37
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6.8
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55
|
14
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| 38
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7.2
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56
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*14.4
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| 39
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7.6
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57
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14.8
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| 40
|
8
|
58
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15.2
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| 41
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8.4
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59
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15.6
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| 42
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8.8
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60 & Over
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*16
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CONSTANTS & FORMULAE USED
Average Start-up of Working Life = 20 Years of Age
Proportion of Spent Average Working Life Allowed in Public Office by Term End = 40%
Maximum Accrued Public Office Years by Age at Term End:
(Candidate's Age at End of Term - 20 Years Age) X 40%
{{Bounded somewhere 14-16 for the latter ages.}}
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HOW TO USE TABLE: Determine the potential candidate's age
by the end of the term to be sought. If their total years in all public offices held up to that point will be greater
than the limit in the table, then candidate is not eligible to run for that office yet or not at all if beyond the highest & final declared limit.
EXAMPLES: Candidate A with no prior public office experience wishes to run for Senate. They would be sworn in at 30 years old -
the earliest age one can be affirmed to the Senate. Since a Senate term lasts for six years, we look at the age of 36 when candidate A
will finish the term. The table gives 6.4 years as the maximum aggregate public office time allowable. Candidate A can
run for the seat since at the end of the Senate term candidate A accrues only 6 total years in public office which is
less than 6.4 years.
Candidate B wishes to run for the House. They have already served 1 year in public office which was completed prior to the required two-year
fallow period. Candidate B wants to attain office at the age of 25, the earliest one can occupy a House seat. At the end of the two-year
House term candidate B will be 27 years old and have acquired 3 years total public office time. According to the table the maximum total public
office time that can have been served is 2.8 years.
Because 3 years public office experience held by candidate B would be greater than the 2.8 years allowable, candidate B
will have to wait to run for the House despite fulfilling age, term limit and fallow specifications.
*CAVEATS: Since the earliest one can get into the House is at age 25 and 30 for the Senate, the age ranges from
25-26 and 25-35 would usually have no significance for end term ages of House and Senate candidates
respectively. However, table entries for some of those ages can be applied to partial-term replacement Representatives
and Senators who will serve within terms for which somebody else was chosen.
This table's ages are being implemented here in an integer manner. A more sliding-scale application
can be used in the real world which accounts for the fluid age range due to the placement of one's birthday
within a calendar year. For instance, the table expresses a candidate's 'Age By End of Term'
in integer values like 37, 38 & 39 years. Instead, the real world can use
37 and a half years, 38.327 years and 39 years plus 4 months, 3 days, 11 hours and 17.65 seconds. This will
increase eligibility for some Congressional candidates via gains from the greater specifics plugged into the
formula. Thus, candidate B above
may indeed be eligible to serve that House term dependent on where their birthday occurs
within a year.
Note the applicability of the maximum accrued public office years greater than 14 and through 16 would depend on some
ultimate or final value settled upon within that range and hence the grey hue to those numbers. (Read section following this table.)
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Now let's state the range of aggregate public office time limits for the
legislative and executive branches of the U.S. which are predicated by
the one-third of rough working-life maximum derived earlier:
~ No one will be eligible for any Congressional term where at the
end of the term the total years the individual has served in public office
through local, state and federal governments including full terms and durations served within other terms
exceeds some final value of 14-16 years*. This value will be settled upon by each state legislature for its Congressional
delegation.
* State legislatures will complete 10-year cycle determination or reviews of such upon result of Census. Those reviews are performed
via a cumulative and/or reunion manner of all the intervening state legislature incarnations up to and including the current Census legislature.
~ No one shall be eligible to serve as President if at the end of the term sought
their aggregate years of service in public office would be greater than twenty years. And no one shall be eligible to serve as Vice
President where if they were to become President and serve all the way through to the end of the following term
their aggregate years of service in public office would surpass the same threshold.
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While a final upper limit of 14-16 total public office years for Congress members
and 20 years for Presidents is generous, we should reserve those
lengths for the more statesmen-like candidates who have proven themselves
as able, honest leaders with constitutional and free market dedication. Though we
allow for more public office experience for the presidency which is the ultimate
office, this is not to say that we necessarily expect presidential candidates to
accrue to such levels. Actually, there will be times when
and candidates that we wish to become President who have little or no
public office record. We want all presidential candidates to boast
significant experience outside of public office. So the fourteen to sixteen and 20-year limits
for the legislative and executive branches respectively are upper level boundaries which allow
for some appreciable public office experience but are still short of the 20+, 30+, 40+ and 50+
aggregate years by career politicians and multi-decade Congress members we have endured.
~anchor for general extents link~
GENERAL EXTENTS -
While we have promoted this plan for the federal legislative branch with its lesser prohibitions
on the federal executive branch, we similarly advocate its structure for the state and local governments as well
though perhaps with some adjustment in numbers for particular cases.
Perhaps state legislatures may wish to consider
to what extent these term, fallow and time accrual limits can apply to categories of persons who have held other government
positions or have held positions of influence on the government. They could apply these extents to their own Congressional
delegations. The states as a whole would put extents uniformly upon presidential aspirants. Such categories may
include:
- Government Employees
- Unionized Government Employees
- Judges
- Cabinet Members
- Agency Heads - Chairpersons
- Ambassadors
- Lawyers
- Lobbyists
Extents will be incumbent upon certain levels of hierarchy to various degree of any subsidized or bailed-out or trade-protected or government-owned or
government-run corporations, banks, financial firms, utilities, contractors, foundations, trusts, conservancies, non-profits,
advocacy & civics groups, community organizations and particular unions. Basically any entity that enjoys a
substantial level of legislative favoritism will have extents applied to them. Government agencies and departments
are included as well. Note that certain personnel or those with conflicts of interest could be banned from holding public office altogether.
Extents should not apply blanketed-ly to private sector enterprises for merely utilizing lobbyists.
Extents shall not apply to full-time government employees until a certain number of years of employment accrued (4 years?). A lower
accrual would apply to unionized full-time government employees (3 years?). We leave it to the state legislatures to hammer out
the extents applied to the various categories in their state.
~anchor for adoption link~
ADOPTION -
Whether or not this plan takes considerable time and difficulty getting amended to the Constitution,
we should immediately begin to apply its term, fallow and time boundaries diagnostically which
will tag certain politicians as long-in-the-tooth and create public discourse
and pressure towards adopting the plan in practice. It's understandable that not all provisions can
be practiced upon & by candidates of the near elections who had already made preparations to run long before
this treatise was posted. Nevertheless, they should embrace its utilization in the not too distant future. All of you
should demand of the Democrat and Republican parties that they self-impose a good deal of these protocols
in the mean time.
An immediate and introductory condition that should be imposed by voters if not by the candidates
themselves, is that any current officeholder who told their constituency that they were not
going to leave for another office before end of the current office and yet they campaign to do otherwise -- such unstable candidates should be
summarily dismissed as a possible victor in pursuing the other office. And any candidate whether or not they promised
their current constituency that they would not leave for another office before completing current term and who attempts to leave for another
office during current term will not be able to keep their present office beyond the election. As a matter of fact, those current constituencies
should demand their resignation.
~anchor for links link~
Congressional Old Farts:
Here's a roster of Congressional old farts that stayed in office way too long!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_members_of_the_United_States_Congress_by_longevity_of_service
Here's a summary of the causes of the high proportion of Congressional incumbent victories and solutions to address the same. Causes: officeholder money advantage, gerrymandering, pork enticements.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Congressional_stagnation_in_the_United_States
This article provides more reasons for Congressional incumbent advantage over challengers - covered travel expenses, compensated campaign time, previous campaign infrastructure.
'While, open-seat candidates (those competing for a seat vacated by a sitting member's retirement or death) did not raise as much as incumbents, the disparity between candidates in particular open-seat races tends to be much less pronounced than it is in incumbent-challenger contests.'
http://www.thisnation.com/question/016.html
http://www.cusdi.org/reelection.htm
Bar graphs showing the House and Senate reelection rates from 1964 - 2008. Even in the years of party swing the incumbent survival was still quite high in the House .
http://www.opensecrets.org/bigpicture/reelect.php
It's really no better for state legislatures:
'A review of state legislative races in 2008 by the National Institute on Money in State Politics shows incumbents won re-election 94% of the time, demonstrating just how powerful an advantage it is to be the office holder. When incumbents also enjoyed a fundraising advantage, the success rate went up to 96%.'
Plus nearly a third of incumbent state legislators are sole runners on the ballot for their race.
http://www.allgov.com/Where_is_the_Money_Going/ViewNews/In_State_Elections_Its_Still_Hard_to_Beat_a_Rich_Incumbent_100511
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