- second I would impose TERM LIMITS on senators and representatives...NO MORE CAREER POLITICIANS! Two terms are enough for a President...two terms are enough for those people!
Be careful what you wish for. The law of unintended consequences is a bastard!
Take CA as a case study.
The good folks voted in term limits in order to limit he control of "career politicians". Now, on their way out the door, the incumbent "career politicians" did some clever redistricting to give themselves "safe" new homes for runs at different offices. Termed out State Assemblymen now run for the State Senate; termed out state Senators now run for State Assembly; when this chain runs out they return to be Mayor or powerful City Councilmen.
Because term limits ultimately guarantees a flow of "new faces", the political operatives work overtime at "maturing" potential candidates. What used to be "non-partisan" races are now fought as partisan battles. Running for Community College Board? What's your stand on Gun Control? Should the US get out of the UN? Did you support the war in Bosnia? What about Abortion? Death Penalty? NAFTA? All elected offices (even the Water Board, for XXXXx sake) are considered "grooming" ground for a new flock of politicos.
Now the "new faces" have begun arriving in droves in Sacramento; unfortunately, in the process, the legislature has lost its "institutional memory" - and nothing gets done. Because new legislators have little time to bone up on the complexities of the various issues presented for vote, they are left to the mercy of the paid special interest lobbyists to bring them up to speed. Because crafting complex bills is, itself, a craft that takes much time to master, the Lobbyists now ghost write most all of the legislation.
Because most of the legislators run in "safe districts" (those controlled by one party or the other), and they are limited to the time they can serve in a particular office, there is little competition for re-election - translation - the incumbent doesn't need to worry as much about the folks back home.
Because most seats are "safe", the real battles are in the primary. Primaries tend to be controlled by the fringe wings of the parties. So, in Republican dominated districts, the
"Calling them Nazis isn't nice" far right fringe dominates, and in the Democrat dominated districts, the
"Calling them Commie Pinkos isn't nice" far left fringe dominates. The result is the slate gets legislators that have little practice, indeed desire, to look for the common middle ground where compromise is reached - the result - a gridlocked legislature.
So CA has traded-in Career Politicians for musical-chair playing extremist amateurs while the unelected, unaccountable, lobbyists run much of the state.
CA has lots of good examples of "good ideas gone bad".
The mental health experts decried the forced institutionalization of the mentally-ill, many of whom it was proposed, could be better, and more economically, treated in local group homes or from out-patient clinics.
Done said the state! State mental institutions were closed in droves. Laws were passed making forced detention of the mentally-ill well neigh impossible until they fired the first shot or were standing on a 12th story ledge. (Needless to say, the "economy minded" legislature made no provision for funding local group homes or outpatient mental heath clinics.) Currently the largest collection of seriously mentally ill people in the state is in the LA County Jail - which has neither the means nor the expertise to provide proper medical care.
Another "good-idea gone bad" was the infamous Proposition 13. Property taxes had gotten way out of control (partly due to the rampant inflation of the time) so the good folks rolled back the assessed values of all real property and put a lower than inflation cap on increase in property tax rates. (No one of course addressed the issue of replacing the lost revenue.)
Oh, boy, I could (and often do) go on and on.
der Brucer (now living in a country where the commissioners are embarrassed by the positive growth rate of the budget surplus and in a state where the Governor is generally praised for the way she has proposed spending the states budget surplus - and there is no Sales Tax!))