GOP Congressional Freshmen Say They'll Limit Their Number of Terms: MY! Aren't We Full of Ourselves!

"I'm only going to serve six terms in the House." "I'm only staying for 12 years in the Senate." Those are the kinds of highly presumptive blasts coming out of the mouths of newly elected republicans in the U.S. House and Senate. As Politico.com reports today, about half of the more than 80 new GOP House members vow to self-impose term limits, while a number of new GOP Senate members are saying the same thing (all of them typically saying 6-12 years will be their limit) (link to full story at bottom).

Kind of putting the ol' cart before the horse, uh boys?! Have these clowns not paid an iota of attention to the 2006, 2008 and 2010 elections? Independents kicked the GOP to the curb in 06 and 08, and we thoroughly enjoyed doing the same thing to the leftist democrat party one week ago. The message: If you're an incumbent in the rotten cesspool that is Washington DC, then your seat is not safe under any circumstances. The last thing any of these slimeballs in either party should be doing is talking about how they will "only" be in DC for X number of years.

Now, all of that being said (and I was being somewhat facetious), Politico also observes that all this big talk from these GOP freshmen will likely breathe some new life into the rather dormant term limits movement. And that's nothing but a positive. In my opinion, the only bad term limit is no term limit. I've heard all the arguments to the contrary, but I'm still waiting to hear any truly compelling reason for why we shouldn't have legislative branch term limits when executive branch terms limits have long been a routine and accepted part of our American political culture.

And when I espouse congressional term limits, I like to think that I'm fairly liberal (in the literal, not political sense) on the whole issue. I'd be fine with terms limits of 12 years in both the House and Senate -- a full four years longer than the typical executive branch term limit of eight years. Hell, I'd even take something longer than 12 years just so that we could have some (any) term limit in place.

So maybe I shouldn't be so hard on this bragadocious hot air from the GOP freshmen. Because if it has the consequence of bringing the term limits issue back into the middle of American political discussion, that's only a good thing.

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1110/44930.html
http://www.termlimits.org/