THUS TERM LIMITS MAKE A DIFFERENCE?

Term limits ensure that elected public officials cannot
remain in power indefinitely. They do this by putting a
restriction on the number of terms someone may be
elected to a public office. Some term limit provisions
only restrict the number of consecutive terms a leader
may serve; others limit the total number of terms over a
lifetime. Lifetime terms limits are much more restrictive,
since an official may never again be a candidate for an
office in which she or he has served the limit of terms.
On the other hand, a limit to serving consecutive terms
means a politician could conceivably be re-elected to
the same seat over and over as long as there was a
break in between each period of service.
The practice of term limits goes back at least as far as
Ancient Greece and Rome, both societies which had
elected officials rather than a royal family or a
theocracy. Several modern presidential republics also
enforce term limits on a variety of offices. For example,
Mexico limits its president to one term of six years'
duration, and its congress people cannot serve
consecutive terms. The Russian Federation limits
consecutive terms for its president to no more than two.
In the United States, term limits date back to the
colonial period, when William Penn provided for triennial
rotation of the upper house of the colonial legislature in
his Pennsylvania Charter of Liberties. Currently, the
President of the United States can only serve two terms
as provided for in Amendment 22 to the Constitution,
but there are no restrictions on terms for the Vice-
President or for members of Congress. There have,
however, been calls for the introduction of term limits
for other national offices in an effort to prevent one
person, such as William Byrd in West Virginia or Teddy
Kennedy in Massachusetts, from virtually holding an
elected position for life.
Within the United States, policies on term limits for
officials elected to state or local offices vary, with some
localities enforcing them and others having no such
policy. Term limits are less common in countries that
have a parliamentary republic rather than a presidential
one, since the head of state often does not have a set
term of office at all; instead, he or she can be taken out
of power at any time upon losing the confidence and
support of the parliament. However, even in a
parliamentary system, some officials who serve a
particular term may have the amount of time they can
hold office limited.
Opponents of Term Limits
Critics in the term limit debate claim that they can be
arbitrary and end up preventing the best person for a job
from serving in it; at times, experience is more
important than fresh perspectives. Constant transition in
leadership can stall legislation and public works projects
before anyone benefits from them. In fact, over the
history of the United States, term limits have, at times,
been relaxed in order to allow a particularly strong
leader to stay in power in a crisis situation, as in the
case of Franklin Delano Roosevelt.
Proponents of Term Limits
Proponents in the term limit debate argue that they
ensure a wider range of perspectives in government and
prevent power from being consolidated in one person,
which could easily happen due to the popularity or
privilege of a particular individual. Term limits offer an
automatic check on consolidation of power.