Problem with term limits is they don't limit terms nearly enough

I have never been a big fan of term limits, mostly because there are so many ways around them.

But with what is happening to our politics these days, I think maybe the biggest problems with term limits is that they aren't draconian enough.

I think we need to amend the Constitution and go, as it were. whole hog toward term limits. Here's the plan:

Everybody in Washington -- the president, the vice president, the Senate and the House of Representatives -- gets one term.

One six-year term, so that we are electing and replacing one third of the Congress every two years.

That one term doesn't mean 24 years holding office -- one in the House, one in the Senate, one as vice president and one as president.

It means one six-year term. Run for the House and win, you can never run for the Senate. Run for Congress and win, you're never going to be president or vice president.


Oh, and you serve your one term and then you leave Washington. You don't get to stick around and make big money as a lobbyist. In fact, you'll face a lifetime ban on lobbying the government.

You'll be like Cincinnatus. You'll put down your plow, go off to serve the country for six years and then return to your life with the proud designation of "public servant."

You might already have figured that there are both good things and bad ones about removing the pressure of ever being re-elected.

The two bad things that come to mind are fairly obvious:

1. We're going to lose a lot of institutional memory when new people are coming into a body where no one has more than four years experience.

2. If someone can't run for office again, the threat of a primary challenger or just of losing someone's support no longer has any weight to it.

But I think the good outweighs the bad:

1. Lobbyists handing out campaign funds for re-election campaigns lose an awful lot of their power.

2. Not worrying about being re-elected at least theoretically frees someone to do what they think is right.

3. Public service regains a little of its luster.

Don't get me wrong. I would much rather have wise, honest legislators making the right decisions based on their long experience and what they believe is right for the country.

Then again, I'd love to have a wild, passionate affair with Julianne Moore. I don't think either of those things is about to happen.

So let's try term limits.

If he were only elected to one term, Barack Obama could have come in and done whatever he thought was right and not worried about a re-election campaign.

But remember, term limits will only work if we go all the way with them.

One term, go home.

Got it?

Good. This seems like something we could do pretty swiftly.