Generally I am against term limits. Even in the very few places that have them, I have not seen any evidence that they either increase the quality of legislative production or decrease the amount of cronyism and corruption that is present in the system.
Rather, term limits work to slowly turn power over to non-elected bureaucracies. The reason is that multi-term representatives, whether at the local, state, or national level, slowly learn their way around the system, learn where decisions are really made, and learn who really has power. They are better able to oversea various bureaus, offices, etc., precisely because they have some hard-won knowledge about how the system really works.
The idea that term limits will somehow ensure that we do not have professional politicians is mistaken. The idea also puts forth the mistaken opinion that if you are in any legislature for more than a couple of terms that this automatically means that you will no longer care for your constituents. In other words, the idea of term limits considers multi-term representatives to be automatically guilty of some crime or other against the people. That idea does not consider the fine examples that there have been of public servants who have served their country faithfully through many terms in office.
However, I must admit that the current Congress could almost be a classic example of the other side of the coin.
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