On Fri, 22 Jan 2010, Michael Smith wrote:
>> I think the term limit campaign is a good model. I wonder how that was
>> organized. Anybody know? I'd love to read a good article on it.
>
> Me too. It seems like the opposite of de-filibustering, though: term
> limits are all about telling us whom we *can't* elect. For that reason,
> it's actually rather anti-democratic, isn't it?
I don't mean they're equivalent in the sense of desirability. I'm saying it was a procedural change that was obviously dead against politicians' interests and which yet got passed in many places when it became the focal point of people's rage against the system. It's a hopeful precedent.
Several candidates got elected on the federal level who made term limits their main issue, but nothing finally happened at that level in the end. I would suggest that was because it required constitutional amendments to which is huge balking hurdle. It if had only required one majority vote, we might have term limits in the House today -- FBOW.
If that's a suitable analogy, this might well be actually be a good issue to rally around -- the kind of simple graspable issue that fires people up and gives lift to other things. Populism you wouldn't be embarassed to be associated with.
Michael