Terms and Conditions
Russian President Vladimir Putin seems to have taken the tutorial industry in Russia by storm. After releasing the acclaimed DVD version of “Let’s Learn Judo With Vladimir Putin”, sales for other martial arts lessons in Russia dropped significantly, granting Putin an even tighter grip over a country he already holds in his vice.(1) With even the Judo masters crushed under his iron first, Putin has accomplished his ultimate goal- to take not only Crimea, not only Ukraine, but Russia, his own people, as well. Leaders such as Putin are often held up as examples of how power corrupts and how we should be wary of even our own elected leaders. Our own founding fathers recognized this potential danger and, with the memory of British oppression still fresh in their minds, aggressively pushed to balance the scales of power, adopting effective measure to check the president’s power. In fact, it would not be until FDR was elected for a fourth time in 1944 that the 22nd amendment would be pushed forward to put in place term limits to prevent such an absolute grip on the presidency.(2) Even now, many congressmen still enjoy long, uninterrupted tenures- a phenomenon that some have even compared to an oligarchy.
The American Enterprise Institute put it aptly- while the founding fathers might as well have been teenagers during the American Revolution, they’re old now.(3) The question du jour is, then, whether or not their centuries-old principles still apply today, and whether FDR’s re-election really should have sparked such a powerful movement for a presidential term limit. After all, he has been consistently rated by scholars as one of the top three US presidents of all time.(4)
The New York Times does a good job of laying out both sides of the argument for us. On one hand, term limits prevent potential imbalances of power, incentivize competition, make voters stay politically active instead of voting for the incumbent every election, and keep elected officials fresh and focused. However, term limits also hold back talented and dedicated leaders from applying their sorely needed skills. The problem that term limits seek to address, the New York Times tells us, is a societal problem- to be addressed with social reforms, not with legal band-aids.(5)
Which side is better, then, comes down to a matter of what we should value. Thomas E. Cronin, a professor of American institutions and leadership at Colorado College, tells us that our government holds an “intrinsic tension”- The people may rule, but they still require checks and balances to hold Big Government down. That’s why, he argues, we have the Bill of Rights, three branches of government, federalism. The 22nd amendment is just another wall against the oppression the founding fathers feared.(6)
 Jonathan Zimmerman, a professor of history and education at New York University, begs to differ. The Bill of Rights, our government’s checks and balances, they all solve serious problems inherently existent in our nation’s foundation. The 22nd amendment and all such regulations, however, are redundant. The American people, Zimmerman says, are intelligent enough to determine their own future- they need no legal barriers in place to guide them. America was founded on the principle of freedom and liberty- who are we to take that away?(7)
The Washington Post informs us, however, that the Founders refused to succumb to such a ‘cult of indispensability’- that is to say, they believed that all leaders were replaceable. Term limits are merely an instrument of rotation, to keep out of American minds the idea that a leader could be indispensable. It was the dangerous assumption of indispensability that led leaders such as Mao Zedong, Kim Il Sung, Fidel Castro, and Moammar Gaddafi to their dictatorial positions.(6) Clinton Rossiter, a leading political scientist in the FDR era, points out that while China may be China and North Korea may be North Korea, the United States of America is also America. The 22nd amendment, Rossiter argues, was an “undisguised slap at the memory of Franklin D. Roosevelt”. In fact, every Republican in Congress and only a handful of anti-New Deal Democrats voted for the amendment, begging the question of whether the presidential term limit was truly needed in our constitutional democracy, or simply another byproduct of Party Wars.(7) We have all the tools needed to prevent America from becoming another Cuba or Venezuela- why hold back our electorate for some perceived danger?
That’s because, Einer Elhauge, a professor of law at Harvard Law School tells us, the danger is all too real.(8) Congress in 2014 had a 14% approval rate, and yet 95% of incumbents were re-elected in last year’s midterm election.(9) Elhauge begs the question, if we hate our congressmen, why don’t we just vote the bums out? “Voting your bum out,” Elhauge explains, “is not an option when what you want to do is oust the other districts’ bums.” In other words, because each district wants to maintain its representation in the legislature, whether or not said representation is truly reflective of their views, they will vote to maintain their incumbent for fear of a loss of clout in a legislature.(8)
  The LA Times, however, points to the problem being not want of representation, but rather an uncaring attitude. It’s not that Americans are stupid, a conclusion political junkies often jump to, but rather that we don’t CARE. Just as many Americans don’t care for cricket or rugby, they also possess an uncaring attitude towards politics. That leads them to do the bare minimum of research come election season- often, voters will cast their ballot for the more familiar candidate, or the one who is perceived to be more reliable or accomplished- an arena where an incumbent official holds an overwhelming advantage.(10) The problem lies not with our system, but our society- and it would behoove us to address the root of the problem, instead of curing the symptoms as they come.
 The Washington Post, in another article, raises two problems of term limits, using President Barack Obama as an example.(7) Obama, by the end of 2013, saw his approval rating dip dramatically to 37% after the failed implementation of Obamacare reforms.(11) Many democrats actually tried to distance themselves from the troubled president. Despite any stumbles, Obama certainly expected Republicans to attack the PPACA. But, if Obama could serve a third term, would he be facing such strong opposition from Democrats like Charles Schumer of New York or Robert Menendez of New Jersey? Doubtful, the Post says.(7)
An even more troubling prospect is the potential for term limits to actually cause the dictatorial, oppressive actions that they seek to prevent. Zimmerman points out that, in his second term, Obama does not have to fear the voters, because he will not run for reelection.(7) That frees him to, for example, take executive action to bypass congress on the immigration reform issue, as he did last November.(12) It also frees him to potentially push the powers of the presidency to new extremes, as President Nixon did in second term(13). If Obama so chooses, he could easily ignore the public will in his second term because he has little, politically, to lose. If the people want him to serve our country once more, why should he be barred from doing so?
Robert Drinan, former Congressman and professor of law at Georgetown University seems to calls term limits “the wrong cure to the wrong problem.” The problem, he argues, is not incumbents remaining in office for too long, but rather that we look for problems in the wrong places. Federal officials control 62.5% of the power granted to all local, state, and federal governments.(14) In other words, the branch of government farthest from the people and hardest for us to pin down is also the branch gifted the most control over us. Controlling the federal government requires a complex, well-thought-out, likely difficult solution. Term limits can be added with a simple constitutional referendum. The complexity of the problem, however, does not behoove us to seek out inadequate solutions with harmful side effects.
 After all, we value liberty and democracy. America was built on the backs of great leaders, and ousting those leaders in the name of limits and barriers is counterproductive to the furthering of our nation. Senator Claude Pepper said it best in 1947- “I think people are to be safely trusted with their own destiny…We do not need to protect the American people with a prohibition against a president whom they do not wish to elect; and if they wanted to elect him, have we the right to deny them the power?”(7)






Works Cited
 (1)http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/7658574.stm
(2)http://blog.constitutioncenter.org/2014/11/fdrs-third-term-decision-and-the-22nd-amendment/
(3)http://www.citizenship-aei.org/2013/08/how-old-were-the-founding-fathers/#.VPJYweEikZw
(4)http://www.americanpresidents.org/survey/historians/performance.asp
(5) http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/10/15/debating-the-pros-and-cons-of-term-limits/
(6) http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/term-limits-are-a-check-against-an-american-cult-of-personality/2014/01/03/270d3034-6374-11e3-aa81-e1dab1360323_story.html
(7) http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/end-presidential-term-limits/2013/11/28/50876456-561e-11e3-ba82-16ed03681809_story.html
(8) http://www.cato.org/sites/cato.org/files/pubs/pdf/pa328.pdf
(9) http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2014/nov/11/facebook-posts/congress-has-11-approval-ratings-96-incumbent-re-e/
(10) http://www.latimes.com/opinion/opinion-la/la-oe-goldberg31jul31-column.html
(11) http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2013/11/20/cbs_news_obamas_approval_rating_sinks_to_37.html
(12) http://www.uscis.gov/immigrationaction
(13) http://www.historyplace.com/unitedstates/impeachments/nixon.htm
(14) http://ashbrook.org/publications/respub-v5n1-beckett/