Politics isn’t my usual fare. Still.
Delving into the world of American politics and its constitution one fact caught my eye. It concerned the term that a House of Representative member serves: two years. Two years? Even a non-political follower like me knows that this is quite a small amount of time to be in power. There’s not much you can do in two years. Four years seems to be the average length globally for general elections and stuff like that. Four years is plenty of time for policies and plans to bear fruit. And if not- Goodbye, you’re out.
A two-year term means that if you want to be re-elected you spend most of your time on the campaign trail. How long does that last? Three months? Six months? A year? Valuable time has to be wasted by campaigning instead of working in the chamber.
The Representative has to dream up a new slogan every two years. This is harder than you think. The new catchphrase has to be snappy and original taking care not to contradict previous banners. Teams of scriptwriters are drafted in to pen a simple sentence or two.
TV and radio appearance are de rigueur. Day after day saying the same thing- I promise you this, I promise you that- to an endless procession of presenters that have a director screaming in their ear telling them to hurry up and close the show.
Meeting Joe DiMaggio public must be quite frightening. Even keeping to places where voters are supporters of your party, curveballs can still be thrown. Hit with a question they don’t know the candidate has to mumble through his teeth while keeping a bright smile maintaining the Politician is always right aura.
It‘s a bit of a drudge this campaigning canvassing lark.
· Shaking hands with everybody and anybody
· Sucking up to donors, newspaper editors, local business magnates.
· Doing the rounds of hospitals, factories, community centres.
· On the phone constantly planning new strategies to win the election fearing, more than God, an upcoming political challenger with a better campaign.
And all this time the Rep could be in the House putting good his political principles and making the world a better place.
Boadicea's Chariot 
Hello TR: All you say is true, my counter is that the more these idiots are kept busy with all the stuff you mention the less harm they can do. I really do a love a deadlocked legislature, they can do no real damage. I am not in favor of giving them longer terms, and I think a strong “Term Limit” law is more than needed, say two or three terms and out, if they have not made progress by then get someone in who can.
Most legislation here emerges from the “Committee System” rather than the floor of the house, and that is where the “Earmarks” are added by the various committee members in order to secure the votes of other representatives in exchange for their share of the “Pork”( which benefits only their home district). Most new legislation is more than amply burdened in order to secure sufficient votes to progress, as a result no new law is clean, generally the larger the authorization the larger the earmarks will be.
I like the idea of an amendment to the Constitution reading something like “If in any year the deficit exceeds 3% of the prior year’s GNP no member of either house shall be eligible for re-election”
Messy business democracy.
There is a very good reason why the entire House of Representatives is up for re-election every two years. The first is that the House of Representatives holds the purse strings. That is also why the districts are very local and were always directly elected. If the president and Senate would be making too much a mess of things voters could take away their credit cards, so to say. This allows for political stability even in a mixed parliament. The problem is that Obama is increasingly becoming dictatorial, preferring to rule by executive order and policy changes than put anything to Congress for a vote as he knows that he won’t get his way. I suppose it also makes him show his true colours.
What is failed to be added, because of gerrymandered boundaries, 75% of seats are safe and representatives frequently serve 20 years in situ. many are not challenged at the Primary level.
So most peoples votes do not count here as majorities can be huge.
There is no oversee by a boundaries commission as the UK has.
There is such in a few states but most get the boundaries redrawn every ten years by the party currently in power, naturally to their advantage!
Thank you all for your informative comments and Happy Thanksgiving.