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Edited by Mrph1 on Nov 30th 2023 at 11:03:59 AM
Term limits on legislators were adopted in 21 states during the early 1990s. Beginning in 1996, the limits legally barred incumbents from reelection in 11 states, and they will do so in four more by 2010. In 2002, we conducted the only survey of legislators in all 50 states aimed at assessing the impact of term limits on state legislative representation. We found that term limits have virtually no effect on the types of people elected to office—whether measured by a range of demographic characteristics or by ideological predisposition—but they do have measurable impact on certain behaviors and priorities reported by legislators in the survey, and on the balance of power among various institutional actors in the arena of state politics. We characterize the biggest impact on behavior and priorities as a “Burkean shift,” whereby term‐limited legislators become less beholden to the constituents in their geographical districts and more attentive to other concerns. The reform also increases the power of the executive branch (governors and the bureaucracy) over legislative outcomes and weakens the influence of majority party leaders and committee chairs, albeit for different reasons.
The Abstract, but you'll need some sort of journal access to read it.
I think it's a little too late to do that.
What? No, there are still free elections ergo we can still get them out of government. In 2018 taking the House allowed Democrats to stop their legislative agenda, in 2020 taking the Senate and Presidency could allow us to stop their appointment of judges and implement our own agenda.
"Einstein would turn over in his grave. Not only does God play dice, the dice are loaded." -Chairman Sheng-Ji Yang![]()
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It's because most Republicans that come on here are Trumpsters and will get banned because their ideals and posts don't match forum rules.
Edited by tclittle on Aug 29th 2020 at 2:08:14 PM
"We're all paper, we're all scissors, we're all fightin' with our mirrors, scared we'll never find somebody to love."
Well, only if they express it. Someone who keeps their true beliefs to themselves could function just fine if they stayed in other sub-forums.
They could theoretically post here too but in practice, it would require 1) incredible amounts of discipline to avoid letting the mask slip and 2) the inclination to post amongst people who hate your beliefs and believe things that you hate. Obviously neither is individually likely and together it becomes incredibly implausible.
"Einstein would turn over in his grave. Not only does God play dice, the dice are loaded." -Chairman Sheng-Ji YangBanned on hate speech and disinformation grounds at the very least. We have conservative tropers on this site, and some of them hang out on the forums, but committed Republicans are getting rarer and rarer in OTC.
It would be nice to have an actual political debate again, but that's impossible if the participants aren't all debating in good faith.
Edited by Fighteer on Aug 29th 2020 at 3:59:41 PM
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"Oh there’s no risk of that, just because OTC lacks US party support variance doesn’t mean it lacks political ideology variance.
We’ve got conservatives, centrists, liberals, technocrats/robotists, progressives, democratic-socialists and even a smattering of people who at least in part subscribe to old school Socialism, Anarchism or similar.
I remember when we had rather strongly opinionated anarchism who felt all police should be shot, they ended up banned rather obviously for advocating violence.
Edited by Silasw on Aug 29th 2020 at 8:53:04 AM
“And the Bunny nails it!” ~ Gabrael “If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we.” ~ CyranI don't think there is a single person in this forum who would purely vote Democrat no matter what out of tribalism.
If the candidates were, lets say, Bill Weld for the Republican side and Tulsi Gabbard for the Democrats, I wager most people would (rightfully) vote Republican.
Certified: 48.0% West Asian, 6.5% South Asian, 15.8% North/West European, 15.7% English, 7.4% Balkan, 6.6% Scandinavian![]()
Those have been infiltrated by the alt-right cult due to lax rules, I strongly suggest staying away from there. The Alt Right Playbook has an episode on such forums.
The sad thing is, the alt righ knows how to infiltrate forums and fandoms with loose rules and radicalize their users. In that regard, we should be very glad they don't get a foothold here.
Well, obviously as someone from a country with a coalition system, I would not be inclined to always vote for the same party every time anyway. The US has a rather unique situation in that regard.
Edited by Redmess on Aug 29th 2020 at 11:21:39 AM
Hope shines brightest in the darkest timesExactly. Even a second party can have considerable influence, and there is often room for a third coalition partner as well.
And even small parties have considerable power, because their support of the coalition can make the difference for getting a vote through. Even a party with two seats can be an important voice this way.
This is in my opinion much more democratic than a two party system, especially one as polarized as the US has now.
Hope shines brightest in the darkest timesIn a coalition government, your party allies with other parties and they agree upon an agenda that still might not be what you voted for, so it's only a step away from a two-party system. My feeling about a coalition or parliamentary system is that it makes voters less likely to vote for realistic, achievable goals.
If there's a party that wants to steal the Moon cheese and feed the poor with it, they'll get votes, which end up being useless since either they won't participate in government or they'll throw in with a coalition that won't get them any Moon cheese anyway.
In the U.K., we've seen how the division of left-wing interests among Labour, Green, Lib Dem, and so on creates tepid, ineffectual opposition to a conservative majority.
I'm not saying that the U.S. system is better, but offering a multi-party system as "inherently superior" fails to pass the smell test.
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"

There is a fair amount of research on the effects that term limits have on politics
. I believe 10.3162/036298006X201742 is the one that discusses most of the points folks here are concerned about.
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman