That can't stop an elderly candidate from running third party to spite the eligibility rules, but that's already the case.

In California, we run an Open Primary system for every partisan office outside the POTUS so parties can’t even guarantee they’ll get a candidate into the general election even if they are otherwise eligible to put nominees forward and sometimes it’s Democrat vs Democrat (this has been happening for US Senate elections) or in some legislative districts Republican vs Republican.

Then coming from the opposite direction, you had a complete outsider in Trump effectively takeover the Republican Party in 2016 and he’s still holding the reins in 2024. Bernie Sanders almost managed something similar with the Democratic Party and they just barely held strong enough to keep that from happening. Twice.

Frankly political parties are incredibly unlikely to come together to impose any restrictions that would impose any kind of extra burden on their elder members, let alone age-gate them.

Either way, neither of them should have gotten as far as they did.

Senate: 1 Term. 6 years. Not able to then serve in the House. House: 2 Terms. 4 years. Not able to then serve in the Senate. 1 Term House + 1 Term Senate. 8 years total.

Elect any LEGAL Citizen regardless of age.

Lobbyists run everything because the politicians are all too new. It also completely disincentivizes long-term thinking because the system guarantees they will be out of office by the time the chickens come home to roost.

Term limits make sense for POTUS. There should be regular changes in Executive management of any organization.

But not the Legislative or Judicial branch. Age limits (minimum and maximum) avoid the "lobbyist capture" issue.

yeah, so we can notkeep every international promise going forward?

Furthermore, having term limits on just one branch of government decreases the power of that branch without decreasing the power of the other branches creating a new balance of power (or imbalance).

Imagine having to vote for someone other than FDR in the 1940 election. Germany had swallowed most of Europe that year. I couldn't imagine being forced to vote for President Wendell Willkie or James Farley to lead us into war because the guy I want can't serve due to term limits.

https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/german-inv...

He won that election by a landslide.

Roosevelt won the 1940 election with 55% of the popular vote, 38 of the 48 states, and almost 85% of the electoral vote.

I think that's kind of bogus. If you can't figure out how to be an effective politician in your first term then you don't deserve to be elected for a second!

The podcast with AOC: https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/the-power-broker-04-r...

The problem here wouldn't even be solved by term limits, because Joe Biden has only been president for <4 years. The problem is that he has started to rapidly decline. Unless you institute some kind of Logan's Run Rule, you can't avoid elderly people in positions of power.

The actual, less fun solution, is for the party apparati to start elevating younger people to positions of power and influence. And that only happens if the members of that party start to demand it. It worked on Joe Biden, and he stepped aside.

And democracy is most certainly not a sociopath shredder. It runs on the power hungry. There are just supposed to be enough checks and balances to prevent any one person or minoritarian cabal from amassing too much power.

The world's democratic governments tax and spend a greater % of GDP than ever before. The last time we were in this ballpark was in WW2.

Have a minimum (25 for House, 35 for Senate, POTUS, Judge) and maximum (75) age for all positions.

I’m not sure why you feel the need to say “LEGAL citizen” and am kind of afraid to ask you to unpack it.

A whole generation is unwilling to acknowledge their mortality, step aside and make room (although unlike politicians many aren’t because they can’t afford to)

The Democrat/Republican party system is what gives incumbents such a lead over challengers. I don't think term limits are the fix, I think we need to change how campaigns are financed - because right now, the parties pick who gets money in downticket races, and incumbents have their own war chests. That leads to challengers being outspent.

I just keep thinking about how the national party rolled over for Dianne Feinstein in the 2018 senate election, even though she lost the support of the state party. No big democrats were willing to drop their support of her, and the national party wasn't going to spend money on a primary/general challenge to a seat that would stay blue.

Or is it the media running cover for the regime and gaslighting the public on the presidents fading mental capacity?

US states are rapidly banning ranked-choice voting †, in efforts to prevent loss of their two-party systems. Campaign finance reform is definitely necessary, but so is the fundamental nature of how citizens choose representation.

†: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instant-runoff_voting

Just one example would be Tennessee, which recently banned the practice after a Memphis suburb attempted to implement the practice.

https://reason.com/2022/04/28/florida-tennessee-ban-ranked-c...

This is naked anti-democratic power-mongering. The only reason to ban it outright (rather than, say, letting people try it and switch back if they find it "confusing") is because you're afraid that people might get the hang of it and think it should be used for state and national elections as well.

So what do I know, I'm just a moron..?

...thanks for the great Reason/link.

2. People misunderstand that FPTP requires tactical voting as well; are the number of people who will continue to misunderstand RCV if it were to become common higher than the number of people who currently misunderstand FPTP?

Consider that anyone who suggests you to vote third party to "end the two-party system", before the voting system has changed, fundamentally misunderstands how FPTP works as well.

Incumbency is a huge thumb on the scales. A functional system needs to have certain checks on those in power that balance the playing field, otherwise democracy is a sham.

The two party system is a problem, but term limits are meant to solve a different issue.