Daniel Biss at MyDD has an entry making the case that when a legislator breaks his term limit pledge, it’s a sign of weak character. He cites an article in CQ Politics. Mark Souder is one of the 2006 Congressional candidates who is breaking his term limit promise.
Biss says it’s not really about term limits, specifically.
It’s not about breaking a single naive promise. It’s about Republicans all over the country failing to come through, failing to stand up for what they claim to believe in. It’s about Republicans being weak.
He also says:
Now that the chips are down, they’re all too weak to come through. When you’re as weak as these people are, it doesn’t matter what you believe: you only ever do what’s convenient.
Maybe the voters of the Third District and Dr. Hayhurst can help Rep. Souder find some strength.
i notice that hostettler is listed as one of the other 25 from the “class of 94”. i’ve been trying to take up daniel’s challenge to determine whether hostettler made a personal term limits pledge.
hostettler now seems to be firmly against term limits. some people seem to think he has always been against term limits:
http://www.warrickdemocrats.com/courier_endorses_jon_jennings.htm
but this is belied by the fact that he signed the contract with america. did he have his fingers crossed when he signed, or did he later change his mind about term limits?
others think he did make a personal pledge:
http://web.usi.edu/boneyard/evvy03.htm
i suspect a lexis-nexis search of articles from 1994 would be the way to answer this, and i don’t have a subscription here at home.
I’m not sure if it would constitute a “personal pledge,” but at a town hall meeting I attended in 1994 I personally heard Hostettler say that he would serve no more than 6 terms (12 years). I have been waiting for him to announce his withdrawl per this promise, but don’t hold my breath for fear of passing out.
Politicians are funny people, no? They may say that they believe in term limits, yet they do not seek to limit their own terms. A male senator may complain about the low number of female senators, yet he won’t step down from his seat so that a woman could take his place.
These people are liars and should be thrown out of office.
I remember back when The Republicans ran on ethics. That will not be the case this year…
Mike Sylvester
I seem to remember Steve Buyer complaining
about Jim Jontz being in Congess for too long
back in 1992. I don’t remember if Buyer stated
a specific amount of time that he would serve if elected, but I’m sure that he (along with a lot of other Republicans that year)was in favor of term limits. I’m still waiting for Buyer to annouce his retirement but like the Energizer bunny he just keeps running…
It really irks me to see them passing legislation spending $45 billion on Rx drugs for seniors when we can’t even pay our bills now. They are destroying our economy with each passing day. They increase the national debt limit to $9 trillion in a blink of an eye. Are these people high? They go around buying votes using our money. We need to stand up and vote them all out. Each day it becomes more difficult to correct the errors.
Maybe a prerequisite needs to be that elected officials must do their own taxes without the aid of professionals, must show they have not bounced a check, filed for bankruptcy and can verbally identify the difference between accrual and cash flow accounting. I would call it the “No Stupid Politician Elected to Office Act.”
I enlisted in the U.S. Navy and served my country. I would do it again if we were under attack. I swore an oath to defend the country against all enemies foreign and domestic. We have 535 enemy combatants in Washington that need to be removed.