Tag Archives: term limits

national news

Wanting to repeal the 22nd

Time for an admission that I hate making, but I’ll do so anyway out of fairness to the integrity of the issue at hand.

As I watch the 44th president of the United States hit the campaign stump for fellow Democrats, I am filled partially with the desire to repeal the 22nd Amendment to the Constitution, the one that limits presidents to two elected terms.

Barack Obama still has the chops to stir ’em up. He can deliver applause lines like no other politician I have witnessed in the 40-some years I have been covering and watching presidential politics.

Republicans in Congress had grown fearful of an imperial presidency after Franklin Roosevelt was elected to a fourth term in 1944. He took office in March of 1945 and died a month later. FDR was a dead man walking, suffering from blood clots, one of which traveled to his brain and took him out. The GOP intended to preserve the presidency for the common American who could seek the office.

Then we got the clown we have now. Donald Trump won in 2016, lost in 2020, only to refuse to accept that he lost. He instigated the Jan. 6, 2021 insurrection. He won again in 2024.

Democrats now are turning to the one home-run hitter sitting on the bench. He’s a former president who reminds us how Republicans used to criticize Democrats for even wanting to talk to Vladimir Putin. Now the former KGB spy is having a “Bromance with Trump,” but that’s OK!

Trouble with Trump, though, is that POTUS No. 47 doesn’t give a crap about the obvious truth coming from Obama … not to mention all the other presidential predecessors.

We won’t repeal the 22nd Amendment. I am actually fine with it. I just wish at times the part of me that resides in Fantasyland could affect public policy in real time.

national news, political news

Trump’s gone loony

Donald J. Trump has flipped that mass of hair on his noggin, gone ’round the bend, has become certifiably nuttier than a Snickers bar.

He says he is considering a way to seek a third term  in the only office he’s ever sought or held. How does he do that? He ain’t saying. Other Trumpkins are concocting ways to skirt around the U.S. Constitution, which has that 22nd Amendment that bars anyone from being elected more than twice to the presidency.

Trump’s been elected twice, to this nation’s ever-lasting shame.

He says “there are ways which you could do it,” meaning he can find a way to get elected a third time as POTUS.

It won’t happen.

Not in this or any lifetime any sane person can envision.

As I said already, Trump isn’t sane. He’s nuts. Bonkers. He’s also an old man who might not live to the end of the current term. He’ll be 83 at the end of the current term. Cognition? Looks like it’s beginning to slip … but that’s just me thinking out loud.

The framers made it difficult to amend the Constitution. They didn’t write a perfect governing document, but they were right to set the bar very high for changing amendments added to it.

The 22nd Amendment is on the books for keeps.

national news

Newest MAGA moron steps up

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Step right up, Andy Ogles, and take your place as the latest MAGA moron to exhibit his colors as a blind loyalist to the MAGA man in chief, Donald Trump.

Ogles is a Tennessee Republican House member who has introduced a bill to allow Trump to run for a third presidential term when his current term runs out in January 2029. Ogles, of course, wants to rewrite the Constitution, which bans anyone from being elected president more than twice.

This is the product of a MAGA dipshit who believes Trump is the savior for a nation that, truth be told and heard, is in quite good shape. Ogles’ amendment would limit a third-term president to those who serve non-consecutive terms. That means, quite naturally, that former presidents Barack Obama, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush are out, given that they were elected to two consecutive terms.

Let it be understood that the 22nd Amendment was crafted in the late 1940s by Republicans who didn’t want an “imperial presidency,” which they feared when Democratic President Franklin Roosevelt got elected to four terms. It has worked out all right since its ratification in 1951.

I am quite sure that when Trump’s current term is up that Americans will have decided they have had enough of the carnival barker masquerading as a serious politician.

As if one term wouldn’t have sufficed.

national news

Senators exhibit wear and tear

Recent episodes involving two prominent U.S. senators have thrust me into a serious quandary.

I do not believe in term limits for members of Congress, but I do believe that those members should exercise proper judgment when it becomes apparent — if not obvious — that they are unable to fulfill all the complicated aspects of their job.

Perhaps you have seen the recent video of Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell freezing, unable to answer a question about his re-election plans in 2026. It is the second such episode we have seen of the Kentucky senator in recent weeks.

Then we have Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California missing several months because she was battling shingles and assorted other ailments. She has returned to her post, but she clearly — according to observers — is nowhere near at the top of her game.

Feinstein 90 years of age; McConnell is 81.

You hear it said in recent times about the need for age limits for senators and House members. Not necessary, any more than slapping term limits on these individuals. Nor is it necessary for the presidency, which does have a two-term limit for anyone elected to that office. I remain somewhat conflicted about whether we need term limits for the presidency.

Over the course of history of our Congress and our presidency we have seen multiple examples of individuals who have stayed in office for far too long. Perhaps the most prominent among them is Strom Thurmond of South Carolina, the senator who served as a Democrat, an independent and a Republican. At the end of his lengthy stint in office, Thurmond was hardly able to communicate, let alone speak cogently about public policy.

There comes a time when all of us should realize when we no longer have the snap required to do our jobs. When you are an elected official representing the interests of millions of other people, such self-awareness becomes even more critical. You must have all your faculties and must be in full command of your wits to make decisions based on (a) your own principles or (b) the will of those you represent.

It looks to me that Sens. McConnell and Feinstein — two of the Senate’s heaviest hitters — are no longer able to fulfill the obligations of their high offices.

Therein lies a stern — but essential — lesson for people in public life at all levels of government.

national news

Still ‘no!’ on term limits

With all the back and forth about political corruption and calls from prominent pols to enact term limits on members of Congress … my position on that matter remains fundamentally unchanged.

We don’t need mandated term limits for politicians who run for Congress. Indeed, we already have them. They occur every two years for House members and every six years for U.S. senators. They are elections.

I also want to disabuse you of the myth that Congress is overrun by longtime House members and senators who have been in office since The Flood. A Congressional Quarterly study done years ago pointed to a healthy turnover of politicians serving in Congress. The study showed that a tiny minority of lawmakers had been in office for more than, say, three or four terms.

As a practical matter, getting Congress to approve a constitutional amendment mandating term limits is problematic, to be sure. That is what it would take for such a proposal to become law. We have our share of pols who say they favor term limits, then they run for re-election to their umpteenth term. Some of them do so successfully; some do not.

There you have it. Term limits at work in Congress.

I once harbored the notion that we should repeal the 21st Amendment limit presidents to two terms. Enacted in 1951, the amendment was meant to prevent presidents from seeking more than two terms after President Roosevelt was elected to office four times. He died just a few weeks after taking office for his fourth term.

The office does take its toll on the occupant, as FDR’s demise — in his mid-60s — demonstrated. Therefore, keep the 21st Amendment on the books.

Members of Congress, though, do not need to be ordered out of office. The voters will have their say if enough of them think their congressman or woman is doing a lousy job.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

political news

What’s so wrong with ‘career politicians’?

You’ve heard it said millions of times, that someone is unfit for public office because he or she is a “career politician.”

I want to speak in favor of those who choose politics for a living, those who select public service as a career goal. I’ve never quite understood why these “career politicians” so often are held up as figures to be ridiculed, denigrated, reduced to four-letter words.

I am not a Pollyanna about this stuff, mind you. I’ve been watching career pols do their jobs for a long time. I spent nearly 37 years in the journalism trenches reporting and commenting on their activities. Some of them were, um, less than noble. I concede that point with no hesitation.

I’ve watched a few of them up close attain national stature. The meanest of them no doubt was the late Jack Brooks, the Democratic congressman from the Golden Triangle of Texas. He used to refer to himself as Sweet Old Brooks. Yep, he was an SOB, but he was “our SOB,” or so the saying went in Beaumont, Port Arthur and throughout Brooks’s congressional district.

Here’s the thing about Brooks: He got things done for his district. His constituents re-elected him many times because his staff did a good job of listening to people’s needs, concerns, gripes.

Career pols comprise a shrinking portion of Congress these days. Voters have expressed themselves with their ballots, turning away politicians who perhaps overstay their welcome. They bring in newcomers. In this current climate, many of the newbies see themselves as media stars, pushing their way into view of TV cameras. I cannot predict how they will wear over time.

I am not going to dismiss them immediately as flashes in the pan, although I am quite willing to make an exception to that rule: e.g., GOP U.S. Rep. George Santos of New York, the serial liar who needs to get the boot at the next election.

All told, though, I welcome career politicians. Someone has to do this job. Those who are willing and able to make public service a career and are willing to serve honorably, well … may they continue in their chosen field.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

legal news, national news, political news

If I were King of the World …

First, I need to stipulate that I never have aspired to be King of the World, but if somehow were it to happen, there are a few things I would change about the current political climate.

For starters:

  • I would limit the U.S. president to a single six-year term, kind of like what they do in Mexico. Presidents there run for a single term and then they’re gone.

What is the advantage here? The president doesn’t campaign for re-election, for starters, and he or she then gets to concentrate solely on legislative agendas.

Too often presidents take office at the start of their first term and begin making speeches aimed appealing to voting blocs that would favor them in a run for their second term. It’s a fairly bipartisan affliction, so my friends on the left can accuse me all they want of offering a “both sides do it” escape clause. Too bad. I just happen to believe it’s true.

I offer this change while reminding readers of this blog that I oppose term limits already. I subscribe to the notion that elections serve as “term limits” if voters believe the officeholder doesn’t deserve to be re-elected.

  • Furthermore, I would like to see terms of House members extended from two years to three or maybe four years. That, too, removes the need for House members to begin their re-election quest immediately upon taking office.

A congressman once told me that he had to dedicate a certain number of hours every week to campaign fundraising, which took time away from research and legislating. It was an unwritten rule, he said, but one that a congressman or woman dare not ignore if he or she wanted to serve beyond that single term.

I wouldn’t trifle with the length of U.S. Senate terms. No need to extend them beyond the six years to which we elect them. Besides, doing so might fill a senator with a notion that since he or she is elected to serve longer than the president that he or she is more important than the commander in chief. We’ve got too many senatorial grandstanders already.

None of this is likely to happen. I am just venting over what I see is serious damage to the political fabric.

Of course, none of this answers the need to stop elected certifiable dumbasses to high public office. We’ll have to deal seriously with that matter later.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

legal news

Term limits for SCOTUS justices? Oh, c’mon!

You are entitled officially now to consider your friendly blogger to be a constitutional originalist, meaning that the founders got it right when they established lifetime appointments for members of the federal judiciary.

Oh, but let’s hold on.

Some congressional Democrats want to rewrite the Constitution by establishing that Supreme Court justices are limited to serving just 18 years on the nation’s highest court. They don’t like the makeup of the current court and they want to shake things up in a way that, to my way of thinking, well could bring the framers jumping out of their graves.

This is a preposterous solution to an issue that is the result of the electoral process.

This term-limit idea comes from Rep. Hank Johnson, D-Ga. His bill also would require presidents to nominate two justices to the court during his or her term in office.

Oh, sigh.

In a statement accompanying the legislation, Johnson attacked the current makeup of the Supreme Court, saying that the Court is “facing a legitimacy crisis” because of its conservative majority, and because five of six conservatives were appointed by Presidents who did not win a majority of the popular vote.”

“This Supreme Court is increasingly facing a legitimacy crisis,” Johnson said. “Five of the six conservative justices on the bench were appointed by presidents who lost the popular vote, and they are now racing to impose their out-of-touch agenda on the American people, who do not want it.  Term limits are a necessary step toward restoring balance to this radical, unrestrained majority on the court.”

Democrat Bill Would Impose Term Limits On SCOTUS Justices, Mandatory Replacements Every Two Years | The Daily Wire

Let me make this point one more time. Donald Trump did not win the popular vote in 2016. President George W. Bush, though, did win the popular vote in 2004 prior to nominating Chief Justice John Roberts and Associate Justice Samuel Alito to the court. However, that misses a fundamental point: Both Trump and Bush won election to the presidency because they garnered more Electoral College votes than their opponents. Their elections were legal, yes, even though many of us detested the result.

The founders sought to de-politicize the federal judiciary by granting judges lifetime appointments. I will acknowledge freely that the courts have become political, however. As for the argument that Rep. Johnson and other Democrats have said about the court lacking “legitimacy,” that argument falls most directly on the head of conservative Justice Clarence Thomas, who should recuse himself from any decision involving Trump’s Big Lie.

Again, is that a sufficient reason to rewrite the Constitution? No. It isn’t.

The best way to bring needed reform in the selection of our federal judiciary is to elect presidents and members of Congress who will nominate and then approve federal judges more to their liking.

The system never has been perfect. Then again, the framers only vowed to create a “more perfect Union.”

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

local news

Legislative turnover on tap

Personnel turnover either freshens governing bodies or it poisons them, depending on who succeeds the members who are exiting the stage.

The Texas Legislature is on the cusp of seeing an astonishing turnover of veteran senators and House members. At last count, 28 House members are either retiring from public life or are surrendering their seats to seek another public office. Five Texas senators aren’t seeking re-election. As the story by Gromer Jeffers Jr. points out in the Tuesday Dallas Morning News, several “moderate Republicans” are among those who are leaving the Senate. They include, Jeffers wrote, my old pal Kel Seliger of Amarillo and Larry Taylor of Friendswood, as well as Jane Nelson of Flower Mound, who was described in the Dallas Morning News story as the “fifth-most centrist Republican in the Senate.”

Who will replace these individuals? Given the huge partisan divide in both legislative chambers and the radical elements in both major parties, it doesn’t necessarily bode well for the future of good government.

Retiring state Rep. John Turner, a moderate Dallas Democrat, said the significant turnover in the Legislature “just heightens the polarization.” He talked about Republicans becoming more conservative and Democrats “losing some of their moderates” and how the vacancies could be filled by those with more radical agendas.

Will there be a bipartisan battle between culture warriors as a result? Time will tell. Suffice to say that we remain concerned that the 2023 Texas Legislature is going to become an even more divided and divisive body than its 2021 version. That version was quite divided, indeed. Let us recall how House Democrats fled the state to prevent House Republicans from enacting a controversial bill that sought to restrict voter access for many Texans. Democrats called it “voter suppression,” but Republicans called it “voter protection” against possible future fraud.

Redistricting has played a part in the turnover. Some legislators are leaving because their colleagues created legislative districts that favored candidates from the other party. Some lawmakers are seeking higher office. Democratic state Rep. Michelle Beckley of Carrollton, for example, is now running for her party’s nomination for lieutenant governor; her House district now favors the Republican candidate. State Rep. Scott Sanford of McKinney is retiring for the same reason, as his newly redrawn Collin County district favors the Democratic Party candidate.

Legislative turnover isn’t necessarily a good or bad thing by itself. If the newly constituted Legislature takes over in 2023 with the state’s best interests in mind, then we well might benefit from an electoral cleansing. If we welcome more rigid ideologues into the Legislature, then we are in for a rough ride.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

political news

Term limits turn politics on its ear

By John Kanelis / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

You know how this plays out.

Conservatives who are upset with government want to rewrite the U.S. Constitution to impose new rules that the founders never imagined when they drafted it back in the late 18th century.

What do they want to add to our Constitution? Why, they insist on limiting the terms of members of Congress, House members and senators.

But … wait a second!

Aren’t these folks the so-called “strict constructionists” among us? Aren’t they the individuals who supposedly honor what the founders had in mind when they cobbled together our nation’s government document?

Sure. As long as it suits their current political agenda.

It’s why I continue to resist the idea of term-limiting the legislative branch of government; I also oppose limiting the terms of the federal judiciary. For that matter, I am not at all crazy about term limits for the president of the United States. The founders didn’t limit the POTUS’s term, either. That came in 1947 when congressional Republicans, reportedly fearing an all-powerful presidency (given that Democrat Franklin Roosevelt won four presidential elections) decided to push for the 22nd Amendment; it was ratified in 1951.

However, again I must wonder what happened to the strict constructionist wing of the GOP, which is fond of suggesting that we need to honor what the founders intended originally when they built our country from the ground up?

Sure, we have corrected some of the mistakes the founders made back in the beginning. Women now can vote; we have made slavery illegal, to name just two midcourse corrections.

I continue to believe the founders got it right when they declined to limit terms of service. Indeed, as I long have noted: We already have term limits; we call them “elections.”