Nikki Haley says the United States is ready to move beyond “the stale ideas and faded names of the past,” and embrace a “new generation” of leadership. The newest Republican presidential contender is reinventing herself as a forward-looking populist. So what big, bright, innovative notions has Haley brought the people? As far as I can tell, two — neither of which has any chance of coming to fruition.
“In the America I see, the permanent politician will finally retire,” Haley explained. “We’ll have term limits for Congress. And mandatory mental competency tests for politicians over 75 years old.” Term limits were already around in the Roman republic and Athenian democracy. These days, it’s a cheap way to tap into voter anger at the political class. And, hey, I hate those monsters as much as the next person. But the returns on limiting legislative terms are negligible, at best. It rarely promotes better governance or less incompetence or corruption. Most partisans vote lockstep, whether new or old.
What term limits often end up doing is forcing out the handful of legislators with genuine expertise or institutional knowledge and replacing them with more amateurish ideologues. Does anyone believe George Santos or Eric Swalwell have improved the aptitude or decency of Congress merely because they’re newer?
Term limits also end up making our lives more politics-obsessed while creating instability in legislatures — which wouldn’t be terrible if it didn’t also create stronger executive branches. A lame-duck politician, the thinking goes, is going to
