Ted Kennedy has been in the U.S. Senate for over 46 years. Robert Byrd has been in his office for over 49 years. Rep. Tom Delay was in his office for 25 years. This is insane. When politicians make their office a career, we ALL suffer. The power of incumbency is real and formidable.

We NEED term limits! But it is the KIND of limits that we need to impose that will make a difference. We must limit politicians not to a fixed time of, say, two terms as we do the President, but to ONE NON-CONSECUTIVE TERM AT A TIME. A House member would then serve ONE two-year term and stand out for the next two years. He could run again and serve another two years then stand out, etc. He could run as many times as he wished until the end of his life. The same would apply for the Senate and for the Presidency. The Presidential model here was Grover Cleveland's terms. He was the only President who served two non-consecutive terms. Between his two terms, Chester A. Arthur was President for four years. With non-consecutive term limits, a President could serve five or six terms if the people thought him worthy of bringing back that often. A bad President would most likely never be brought back after one term.

Two arguments have been raised against imposing term limits on Congress. First, is the one that claims bureaucrats will have more power if we limit politicians. But the bureaucracy is a liberal establishment already. At least rotating fresh Congressmen in and out would give 'We The People' some chance of changing that. Second, we don't want to prevent GOOD people from staying on. With rapid cycling of Congressmen, the tendency would be to KEEP bringing back the GOOD ones. BAD ones would tend to be weeded out because of their bad records.

Non-consecutive term limits would eliminate 1) the power of incumbency, 2) the 'Lame Duck' effect since ALL politicians would be similar ducks in the pond, 3) politicians' campaigning on OUR time and on OUR dollar while in office, and 4) politicians' getting too OLD and DEMENTED with no possiblity of removal except by DEATH.

We need a Constitutional Amendment to make this change. But Congress would never limit themselves this way. We The People would have to put MAJOR PRESSURE on our State legislatures to petition Congress to introduce such an Amendment or call a Constitutional Convention to introduce one.  If this doesn't work, then we would have to start MASSIVE elective and/ or recall efforts in each state to get new House and Senate members who would support the new amendment.