Michael Barone notes that we’re down to two:
Henry Waxman and George Miller are retiring from the House and not running for re-election after 40 years as a congressmen from southern and northern California.
Also retiring and not running for re-election is Sen. Tom Harkin of Iowa. Senator Max Baucus of Montana will resign if, as expected, he is confirmed as ambassador to China. Both were first elected to the House in 1974 and were later elected to the Senate.
These four are just about the last members serving in Congress of the 75 Democrats first elected to the House in the Watergate year of 1974.
…and good riddance to bad rubbish. That was the Congress (specifically: those were the Congressional Democrats) who decided to make the USA break its promise, and thus condemned several million people in South Vietnam to a life of slavery and want. In a just world, they would have been long since hounded from office; alas, I have to settle for watching them settle into the indifferent embraces of entropy. Admittedly, that has its compensations…
Via Instapundit.
Moe Lane
I am of the opinion of giving Representatives six full terms, Senators two full terms, and the President one six year term.
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I know the last one isn’t popular, but I beat the drum to the march of the voices in my head. Muahahahah!
I use a simpler standard, Gator. A simple lifetime limit of 24 years of non-military, non-judicial government service, no more than half of that in elected positions.
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Guarantees turn-over both in the elected and appointed branches.
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Mew
The problem with all term limits, at this point, is that it empowers the permanent bureaucrats at the people we actually elect. First, of course, because there is a learning curve to any job, and it’s worse when the people “working for you” are deliberately lying to you, so you are going to give the P.P. a lot more fresh meat. Second, because letting the P.P. know they can outlast any problematic crusader is going to make them more or less responsive? Third is that you haven’t covered “staff”, which are often tied quite closely to the P.P., so what we would see is a revolving door of “faces”, with the permanent staff and the Permanent Parasites telling them what to do, while they remain safely faceless…..
A fair point, Robert Mitchell, but as long as we’re indulging in the fantasy that Congress would ever vote to limit Congress’s terms in some fashion, let’s eliminate Civil Service. That is how we get lifetime bureaucrats, after all. I honestly think we would be better off with the favoritism of the old system. At least that way, we wouldn’t end up with rogue bureaucracies. And if we did, they wouldn’t be there very long.
Perhaps government should be like ‘Logan’s Run’. After three terms you go to Carousel to be elevated to the Supreme Court.
You hope.
But not.