Comments on: A Proposal For Term Limits in Delaware

By: noman

noman — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 15:57:18 +0000

You want term limits? Make legislators’ salary $1000. per-year

No, then we get a parliament of the rich.

Instead, make them quit their day jobs, put all their assets in a blind trust, and pay them a salary equal to the median.

By: Rick

Rick — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 15:44:56 +0000

You want term limits? Make legislators’ salary $1000. per-year, like it should be, eliminating the professional parasite.

By: Tyler Nixon

Tyler Nixon — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 14:05:15 +0000

I agree wholeheartedly, Elbert. I am glad to see the idea percolate up.

I had actually gone so far as to write a rough draft of the legislation in ’06. Obviously, those we need to pass such a measure had/have no interest in putting themselves out of office, so I included in a “grandfather” clause to exclude “members of the General Assembly serving at the time this Act becomes law”.

My approach to any of my campaign proposals has always been : “Please, steal this idea!”

By: thatsElbert

thatsElbert — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 13:32:34 +0000

Tyler, I was unaware that you had proposed that. I wrote about this idea on my blog last summer when Rep Biff Lee was running (at that point) unopposed. A friend added in the “cooling off” or ineligibility period, saying that many church boards had a similar policy. It was in place to cut down on a “ruling class” and gave the members a break from the business of the church.

Regardless of where the ideas came from, they are good ideas.

By: Tyler Nixon

Tyler Nixon — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 12:42:46 +0000

I am glad to see my proposal from my ’06 and ’08 campaigns for GA has found an audience outside my district.

In ’06 and ’08 I called it “Incumbency limits without term limits”, proposing that no citizen be eligible to serve more than 12 consecutive years in the General Assembly.

I also proposed that this ineligibility would last one year for every two consecutive years served (i.e. if you held a seat for 12 years, you would have to wait 6 years to run again for GA).

By: David

David — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 12:26:11 +0000

I think an eight or ten year across the board would be better. there is no reason to limit house members to less than senate members.

I think this a more intelligent proposal than the life time ban proposal and would do less damage. I am not a fan of term limits because they are stop me before I vote again limits on the voters. The voters then proceed to elect the same type of voters.

The problem is not who is in office. It is the type of people we elect because we no longer value the constitution ourselves. CA has had term limits for two decades and things only got worse. Why? They replaced career socialist for revolving door socialist and got rid of some of the people who did put the breaks on it through senority. You can see the same would happen in Delaware.

When term limits came about, incumbents had a 95% reelect rate. Now days people change more often.