One and done term limits could fix Congress

OPINION:

One and done. It’s the phrase for college basketball players who spend a year on campus before graduating to the NBA. It’s now time to take concept to Capitol Hill and send members of the House and Senate packing after serving only one term.

Since term limits are unconstitutional, amending the Constitution to achieve this reform would be extraordinarily time-consuming — not to mention improbable, given the need for support from two-thirds of the House and Senate.

But “we the People” need not wait. We can impose term limits every two years by simply refusing to re-elect any representative or senator who runs for re-election.

This won’t come easily. Still, the ground for such a grassroots campaign is well-plowed. A Gallup Poll earlier this year found that 86% of Americans disapprove of the job Congress is doing and that only 10% approve.

The reasons vary but are well-known: Members campaign on promises they never intend to (or cannot) keep; they are beholden to special interests; they bow to party loyalty or the occupant in the White House; and they search endlessly for money to finance their exorbitant campaigns or personal enrichment.

In short, the impulse for those anemic approval ratings is the public belief that the members are motivated more by self-interest than national interest.

Admittedly, it’s unfair to tarnish all 535 members with the same toxic brush — and I am well aware of the paradox of near-universal condemnation of the class of people but near-universal reelection of the individuals. But a Congress that refuses to deal with hard issues and declines to assert its role as a co-equal branch of government provides sufficient reason to for us throw the whole lot out until they start doing their jobs.

Of course, limiting tenure to one term will not instantaneously reverse public opinion or provide miracle cures for what ails Congress. But removing reelection considerations from decision-making on Capitol Hill would inject immediate honesty into legislating and have the added benefit of lessening the mad dash for money — dark or otherwise — that flows to candidates.

It would also elevate Congress’ approval ratings by reducing the legitimacy of many of the complaints that currently infect the body’s approval ratings. Members would have a credible argument that their votes aren’t for sale, but rather reflect the members’ honest opinions or those of their constituents.

There are, of course, legitimate reasons to oppose the concept. Congress is meant to grapple with complex and serious issues – in theory if not in current practice — and filling the halls with a rotating group of neophyte legislators could inhibit effective lawmaking. (Compared to what? I might retort.)

To deal with this shortcoming, it would be preferable for Senate terms to be eight years and House terms six. But the Constitution sets the length of the terms and, once again, changing would be a fool’s errand.

So, since we can’t change terms’ durations, let’s let citizen-legislators roam the halls of Congress, as the Founding Fathers intended. To paraphrase William F. Buckley Jr., I would be more inclined to put my trust in the first 100 names from the Des Moines phone book (if such still exists) than in the 100 people who now populate the world’s greatest deliberative body.

Some institutional memory would inevitably be lost. But since, by one estimate, more than half the current membership in the House has been in Congress less than eight years, how much institutional memory is there to lose?

And one more advantage is worth considering: Spineless genuflecting adjacent to the latest nonsense from President Trump (on the right) and the Democratic Socialists of America (on the left) would be reduced, if not eliminated entirely, by honest assessments of the lunacy that now passes for political discussion.

Outgoing Sen. John Cornyn, Texas Republican, said it all recently when he explained the liberation he felt by no longer worrying about reelection: “I can just do my job and not have to worry about the politics.”

We can help all our legislators feel that way. One and done is the answer.

• Lance Morgan is a retired crisis communications executive and the former press secretary for the late Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan, New York Democrat, and the Senate Iran-Contra investigating committee.