AT LEAST 11 House Democrats not running next year for re-election

[VirginiaCat]

They already see the writing on the wall...

[suncat05]

We need term limits on these people. And it needs to be set up where they cannot be in both Houses of Congress, as in serving in the HoR and then the Senate. And they should not be able to have jobs as lobbyists for at least 20-26 years after they have served in Congress.
Senators should not be allowed to serve more than one six year term, and members of the HoR should not be allowed to serve more than 3 two year terms.
These damn career politicians are killing our country with their poisonous treason and leftist-Socialist nonsense.

[MickintheHam]

Be careful what you wish. If there are no experienced people in Congress, the bureaucrats will run the legislative branch.

16 years in the House and 18 in the Senate would seem reasonable. I don’t like many Democrats. However, the ones who have been there 30 years are preferable to what they have elected in the last 6.

[VirginiaCat]

At some point, someone has to ASK how you enter congress/senate worth $2 Million and come out worth $220 Million 20 years later on a $200,000 salary.

[bigsky]

Mick is right. Saw that happen in Mt legislature after term limits. I

[suncat05]

Then what is the answer? Because clearly, what we have in place now is not working either. These career politicians are slowly, methodically, painfully, and gleefully killing our Republic.

[suncat05]

In what world besides Washington D.C. does a person leave their job after being terminated from their position and still get to draw that salary and benefits for the rest of their lives? And get to be excluded from a national healthcare program that the rest of the citizenry has to not only pay for but have to put up with even though it clearly doesn't work?

These politicians vote themselves a raise and more benefits. They have lavish, luxurious offices with large staffs, get to eat in dining facilities on the taxpayers, and have perks that most of us would never dream of. And they make boatloads of money from lobbyists and businesses for their "votes".

These people are so out of touch with the average American citizen that it's not even laughable. These people have forgotten where they came from, that is, "IF" they even came from the everyday citizenry of this country like most of us here. So that is exactly why I am all for constraining these people as much as possible. Power corrupts. Absolute power absolutely corrupts.

[CitizenBBN]

Be careful what you wish. If there are no experienced people in Congress, the bureaucrats will run the legislative branch.

16 years in the House and 18 in the Senate would seem reasonable. I don’t like many Democrats. However, the ones who have been there 30 years are preferable to what they have elected in the last 6.

Exactly. The bureauacrats and career Congressional staffing would run the country.

I'd be more interested in:

1) Term limits for staffing and even for administrative positions. The real power in Washington is in the career bureaucrats and swampy long termers who have their networks and live in a bubble. Biden is a great example. He's had a staff of handlers since the 1980s who make the real decisions and bring in all those people "he" nominated to power. The staffers wield more power than the actual politicians in many cases.

2) Doing something to eliminate the ability of Congress to abdicate their legislative power to the administrative bureaucracy. They pass a law and then include language to direct the appropriate agency to write another 1,000 pages of law to fill in their gaps.

3) Eliminate direct election of Senators and go back to them being appointed by state legislatures. This restores the balance of the federalist system and give state governments a say in how they are rode roughshod over without having to go the Supreme Court for everything.

4) All laws made by Congress apply to Congress as well.


There's a long list, but it's not really the politicians that are the problem. They are responding to an environment to get ahead and politicians have always been that way.

The system was built to constrain those ills, and we've loosened those constraints too much. Undoing the direct election of Senators would be the biggest step in restoring the Senate to being a more deliberative body that is VERY concerned with the power of the states versus the federal authority, or they'd get recalled.

The Founders knew you can't constrain power forever, but you can pit it against other power to keep it constrained. The power of the states has faded far too much compared to the federal authority, allowing the federal state to amass far too much power.

[CitizenBBN]

At some point, someone has to ASK how you enter congress/senate worth $2 Million and come out worth $220 Million 20 years later on a $200,000 salary.

Oh, they don't get rich. It's their spouses and kids, lol, so it's all OK.

IMO they should make a much higher salary as they do have significant expenses, or they should be given a larger travel budget for overhead.

BUT then after that they don't get a penny, nor any immediate family. There are loopholes for them to profit you can drive a truck through right now.