I understand your point. But how to get around that?

The alternative seems to be long terms, pork and cozy friendhips with lobbyists for future careers. I can see already how the new Congress is being seduced by special interests.

Is there an answer?

My point was not that you had to pay for someone to want to commit to public service but that you couldn’t ask them to destroy their careers for it, which is true for most careers if you just left for six years or so. In addition the average American whose living is provided by a salary from his job cannot simply leave that job in order to run for public office. It’s financially impossible for the overwhelming majority of people. That makes the pool of people who can run for office much smaller than the term limit idealists think it is.

If that’s true, we’re goners.

Since women are much more likely to be Democrats than Republicans, I wonder if women are just a proxy to show that term limits hurt Democrats more than Republicans.

Since many candidates today come from the staffs of serving politicians, I wonder if term limits just limits the number of established, connect staffers who want to move up?

For me there’s pros and cons for each position- among the pros- getting fresh faces who are still in touch with the real world and may have new ideas, limiting the corrupting power of longevity in office, attracting those whose motives are genuinely to provide public service rather than pad their own resumes on the way to a lobbying career.

Cons include having a limited number of candidates in the talent pool, having the confusion that comes from constant turnover, and losing experienced hands who can maneuver through our system.

Maybe there’s a happy medium- allowing govt officials to become more experienced, but not so ensconced in the system that they have an unfair advantage that challengers must overcome.

The group the benefits the most is not lobbyist but the permanent civil servant s and the staffers. They know how the process works.

I do not see it as undemocratic because the alternative is the current U.S. Senate that is based upon seniority. That gives states that keep returning the same pork barreling politicians like Robert Byrd the most power.

Term limits is suppose to limit the growth of government because long term politicians keep proposing bigger programs and begin to see the public sector as the solution for everything.

Term limits are anti-democratic not only because they deny the voters their choice of who will represent them, but because they almost demand that the representatives of the people be inexperienced and very temporary, while the special interests are represented by experienced and knowledgable hands.