One of the topics that has been actively debated on both sides for generations is term limits for public offices.

So I have some questions that relate to this topic:

1) Is holding political office really something that should be considered a career?
2) Are the skills that help someone get elected really indicative of or even related to the skills that will make someone effective in public office?
3) Does it matter by the office? Is our answer different for legislators, executives, administrators or bureaucrats?
4) Does it matter if I limit the term in one office, if there are other offices that a man can be elected to?

Does the office matter?
I think that administrator or bureaucrat roles can be a career – most of them require some domain expertise and are fairly specialized – so things like attorney general, sec’y state, treasurer, – which in state and local governments are typically elected can benefit from consistency, and long standing. Of course the opportunity for corruption grows with each term, so some accountability must be in place. Conversely, legislative and executive roles are generalized and primarily social – meaning very little expertise or specialization is required. These are supposed to be representatives, so the “job” can be done well by less experienced men and women. Longevity builds networks withing government organizations, and that creates power culture. Increasing the frequency of turning these jobs over equalizes the power, and destroys the power culture. The current party system tends to want to promote the power culture, because they both use it to keep other third parties out of power (by freezing them out) and keep each other at bay. It is hard to unseat an incumbent who is not actively shooting himself in the foot. Long terms in office allow individuals to exert great influence within a party. It appears to me that term limits for executive and legislative offices would decrease the importance and influence of political parties and reduce the leverage of existing parties over the genesis of power for new parties.

What skills are important?
Unfortunately, most of the politicians that I grew up appreciating would be largely unelectable today. Too opinionated. Not telegenic enough. Perhaps history paints a different picture of the electoral process, and it was just as “ugly” back then, but we have somehow been allowed to romanticize “the good old days”. But it seems like the electoral process is much uglier and more focused on predicting the winner than ever. So the skills required to get elected – campaigning, creating a “message” or platform, recruiting and schmoozing volunteers, are very different from the skills needed to execute the office once elected.

What about office jumping?
If we restrict the term for each office, what would prevent a person from serially inhabiting one office after another? Would this form of political career be as subject to corruption and power culture abuse as the current state? I tend to think that the longevity required to build a powerful network would be thwarted by individual term limits, because the network would be more dynamic – my network would not follow me from one office to another – as much. So, while this still enables a politician to maintain his career, he loses the power of incumbency more frequently; he is forced to face others on equal standing more frequently.

Should political office ever be a career path?
At the end of the day, I think that it is reasonable in some cases for people who seek to do good for society, to seek political office as a means to guide some governmental entity to improve the lives of citizens. I also think that some safeguards or limits need to be established so that power cultures in either federal, state or municipal governments are prevented from developing. I think that reasonable term limits for representative or executive offices are one important way to accomplish this.

What do you think?