Term limits sound wonderful.
Throw the bums out. Stop members of Congress from treating public office as personal property. Keep Supreme Court justices from making decisions for 30 or 40 years after the president who appointed them has disappeared into history.
I understand the appeal. Some politicians remain in Washington long after most voters remember electing them. Some justices interpret a country that looks very different from the one that existed when they were appointed.
So we show them the door.
Then we discover the lobbyist standing behind it.
That is the problem with term limits. Power doesn’t leave Washington when an officeholder does. It passes to someone else, often someone voters can’t remove.
Congress is the clearest example. A new representative may know the district and a few issues very well. The defense contractors, bank lobbyists, pharmaceutical companies and federal agencies know the committee process, the appropriations rules and what is buried on page 842 of a thousand-page bill.
Someone has to explain how Congress works. An experienced committee member can do that. So can the lobbyist whose client stands to make millions from the answer.
Term limits remove the career politician while leaving the career lobbyist in place.