Congressional contents may settle

Up until this year the thought of having term limits was not a serious subject. Overall, they were considered un-American at worst, and quaint at best. A new Congressperson immediately begins to try to construct a cocoon for themselves that will them keep in Congress forever or until death do us part.

With the cooperation of a governor, a congressional district is constructed (gerrymandered) to include all of his friendly pockets of voters into one continuous district. Some of these congressional districts look like snakes. They can be hundreds of miles long and at some places hundreds of yards wide. Ridiculous. To keep themselves in office, they must direct earmarks (money) to their constituents. In effect, they take money from you in the form of taxes and then bestow it back to you as if it came out of their own pockets.

Our government cannot give you anything until it takes it away from someone or somewhere else. An improvement in your district could have come from a poor district that needed special-ed teachers. Their representative did not have the seniority or clout.

After several terms, trying to vote them out of office is near impossible. The normal turnover, including the Senate, is around 40 people out of 535. If a substantial portion of the electorate wish to give a younger or smarter person a chance at this office they have everything against them.

No one should be able to plant themselves in office for 20, 30, 40, years. In a dictatorship, the leader and his cronies eventually get overthrown. In our form of government, we have a more civilized method: an election. We must have turnover in our congress. A pot needs to be stirred; if not, the contents settle to the bottom and stick. We need reasonable term limits.

D.O. Lipensky

Wheaton