Giving Up on Democracy: Why Term Limits Are Bad for America

Kamber argues that term limits are a disastrous quick fix and must be stopped.

No item of the House Republicans' roundly reviled Contract with America failed more conspicuously than congressional term limits, as a half-hearted Speaker Gingrich declined to demand party allegiance to them as he had for other contract measures. A good thing, too, says Kamber, for the term-limits movement is profoundly antidemocratic, an attempt by anarchic libertarians and wealthy would-be plutocrats to expunge political experience from Congress and state legislatures so that lobbyists and professional legislative staffers unbeholden to the electorate will be drawing up laws and seeing to their passage. Kamber is very persuasive in arguing that view of term limits and even more persuasive in maintaining that experienced politicians make the best legislators. It is campaign and legislative procedural reform that U.S. politics needs, he insists, not term limits, and he finishes his brief with a resume of such reforms that will do good and others, including some the 104th Congress has already enacted, that will not. Ray Olson

Despite the failure of the Republican-controlled House to pass a constitutional amendment limiting congressional terms, the movement to enact term limits at the national and state levels remains vibrant. The publication of George Will's Restoration (LJ 11/1/92) gave proponents of term limits many strong arguments. Kamber, the president of a consulting and public relations firm, a radio show host, and a political activist, methodically takes each "benefit" of term limits identified by its advocates and presents research-based evidence and thoughtful analysis to refute them. He also craftily exposes the sponsors of the term limits movement as anything but magnanimous democrats. His consistent theme is that imposing term limits is the wrong solution to the problem of reforming American politics, and he warns that they will create much more harm than good. Kamber's prose is crisp, jargon-free, and accessible to a wide audience. Though not a balanced or scholarly treatment of the subject (for these qualities, see the Center for Legislative Studies' Limiting Legislative Terms, LJ 11/1/92), this book is a fine addition to the literature in this area.?Thomas J. Baldino, Wilkes Univ., Wilkes-Barre, Pa.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.