CDZ Do You Support Term Limits For Congress?

[oldsoul]

I personally think that the State-Controlled airwaves should be made available free of charge to anyone with demonstrated support during the biannual elections for federal office. By that I mean that the radio and television stations that are licensed by the FCC should be required to run candidate-produced advertisements on a 1:1 ratio.

An interesting idea. One which I am not completely opposed to, however, I am slow to endorse anything requiring private firms to do any particular thing, especially when it involves government and money. Now, you say it would be "free air time", that air time costs money. If the candidates don't pay for it, and the government doesn't pay for it, the stations/networks would have to pay for it. Even if that were only in lost advertisement revenue.

What I didn’t say was that there would be time limits; say from September 1 to Election day. This would be once every 2 years. And remember, they can buy whatever they want on top of what they get for free so it’s not as if the stations would be making nothing off of the election.

You seem to be missing my point. If the network is required to provide air time free of charge, then the network loses money. These are PRIVATE businesses that are for profit. It would be the same as if cell phone providers were required to provide a certain number of cell phone plans for the election free of cost. They simply pass the cost on to those who pay. That would be you. You therefore, indirectly, help to support a candidate that you may or may not agree with.

Additionally, it is FORCING a business to have political content, whether or not they wish to. It really goes back to the First Amendment, for me.

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."

Emphasis added.

I am watching food network right now. Just saw the “required weekly test” of the Emergency Alert System. We already force Direct TV to do it. We also force terrestrial radio to do it. This is not much different. It’s for a defined period every other year. Little if any injury.

Maybe we can make Mexico pay the stations? Lol

Good point. There is a difference, to me at least. Maybe I am playing semantics, maybe not, I'm really not sure. either way, the difference, to me, is that your example is for fact based informative purposes. Requiring political ads, paid or not, is not fact based. It is informative, however, there is nothing stopping said ads from being total fabrications, opinions, or otherwise not fact based.

That said, while I would still oppose it, if one were to argue that these ads should be paid for out of a general election fund, and disseminated equally amongst the various candidates in a given race, then I would be more willing to have a discussion about it. Maybe we could find some common ground there.

 

[oldsoul]

Here's a wild/crazy idea:

Time limits: Congress members can only spend so much time in D.C. Say, 120 days/yr. How, and when they spend those days is up to them, with one caveat, they are sequestered. No contact with non-government officials/staffers who reside outside of their respective districts, except press members and immediate family members (spouse, children, parents, grandchildren, ect.). Any contact with press members must be done in the capitol building, in a common areas. They can spend 30 days outside of D.C. and their districts, and the remaining 215 days must be spent within their districts.

What do you think?

 

[DandyDonovan]

Here's a wild/crazy idea:

Time limits: Congress members can only spend so much time in D.C. Say, 120 days/yr. How, and when they spend those days is up to them, with one caveat, they are sequestered. No contact with non-government officials/staffers who reside outside of their respective districts, except press members and immediate family members (spouse, children, parents, grandchildren, ect.). Any contact with press members must be done in the capitol building, in a common areas. They can spend 30 days outside of D.C. and their districts, and the remaining 215 days must be spent within their districts.

What do you think?

I think that would violate so many civil rights that it is ridiculous.

The only real solution is that we do a better job of educating voters. I mean how much brains does it take to look and say "this person has been in Congress since 1987 and things are actually much worse than they used to be, let's make a change?"

But people today are just stupid.

But on the other hand, when a move is made, those that voted to make a change are ridiculed, and both sides do it, look at Trump and AOC as two prime examples of that. BOTH were elected because voters just got fed up with the same old same old and those voters are ridiculed by other voters, well at east those voters weren't stupid enough to keep voting for that which hasn't been working. Give AOC and Trump a chance, why don't you?

 

[oldsoul]

I think that would violate so many civil rights that it is ridiculous.

I'm not so sure. One is not required to run for office...

You are correct though, the real underlying problem is the stupid/ignorant people who keep voting for those who do little to nothing to actually solve problems. But then again, maybe that is part of the problem too. Why are we expecting Washington to solve all of our problems? There was once a time when people saw a problem and fixed it. They didn't ask, "Oh, please big brother may I..." They just took the bull by the horns and did what needed doing. Sometimes they got it wrong, but when the solution is cheap, quick, simple and wrong; the remedy is generally quick simple and cheap (relatively speaking).

 

[evenflow1969]

The powers that be imposed term limits on the POTUS (mostly due to FDR's 4 terms), why not term limits for Congress?

Do we need to limit congress power? They seem to limit them selves. When is the lst time they passed a budget on time or declared war? They seem to be on a long day off.

 

[sartre play]

Best would be getting the money out, buying our supposed leaders with campaign money. we don't seem to joining forces on that, so maybe 3 terms as the limit would allow some new ideas & energy, could help?

 

[Votto]

The powers that be imposed term limits on the POTUS (mostly due to FDR's 4 terms), why not term limits for Congress?

The people overwhelmingly support term limits.

Problem is, Congress does not care.

The ONLY way to have this done is the Article V movement. States need to rise up and amend the Constitution. It has never been done before but now is the time.

The Founding Fathers were wise enough to include this provision, because they knew we would need it someday.