preview

One Of The Most Prominent Issues Facing The Current United

Better Essays
One of the most prominent issues facing the current United States Congressional system is the lack of term limits for Congress members. The lack of limitation creates a system of career politicians that maintain many of the same legislative ideas or principles in Congress for many years, making it hard for changes in legislature to occur. With an aging congress population, many constituents feel out of touch with their representation and the system of seniority in place today allows for little chance of changes occurring without some sort of reformation. Unlimited terms create gridlock, limit the potential for legislation to be passed, and make compromise very rare in Congress. In recent years, U.S. politics has become very polarized and…show more content…
In 2014 a majority of Congress, about 96% (Davidson et al. 2016), were incumbents who had won reelection. According to OpenSecrets.org, in the 2016 election 97% of House incumbents won reelection, and 87% of Senate incumbents achieved reelection. These numbers show how heavily the odds are in favor of incumbents in gaining reelection. Historically the reelection rate of both the House and Senate is high, indicating that many of these politicians serve multiple consecutive terms regardless of the congressional approval rating. It is increasingly hard for new politicians to enter into the congressional arena because of the nature of campaign finances and how much more money established members draw in towards reelection. By not limiting the number of consecutive terms a Congress Member can serve, campaigns for reelection increasingly garner more donations to keep these politicians in power because they benefit people who are wealthy enough to contribute large sums to incumbent reelection campaigns. Current congressional terms are six-year terms for the Senate and two year terms for the House that can be served an unlimited number of times. According to Congress and Its Members, the framers of the Constitution and the Federalist papers debated imposing term limitations, but the incentive of reelection was deemed more important to ensuring proper service to the
Get Access