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Posts published in “Day: January 7, 2025”

Change works, sometimes

As we age, one of life's hardest lessons to deal with is change.  Seniors can have a hell of a time with it because change often means leaving behind comfortable habits and beliefs created over many decades.  Re-education, it seems, is unlearning or leaving behind something you know - or even feel - so you can accept the new.  The different.

One example for me was when "Newsweek" magazine ended its print edition after more than 80 years of continuous publication.  I'm a former employee of the Post-Newsweek Corporation when it was in its heyday with newspapers, radio/television stations and the legendary newspaper and magazine.  The boss was Katherine Graham, a brilliant and legendary person.  When you could put "Post-Newsweek" in a byline or on a resume, you got attention.

But now, change.  Damned change!  Starting in 2013, "Newsweek" went digital - like Slate and Huffington Post. The corporate decision to go digital was probably a good one.  A necessary one.  But, I miss the ink-and-paper weekly that was.  Now the digital version is gone, too.

On another change, I'm being forced into a mental corner on a political issue.  Like the magazine change, this one may seem unimportant - even esoteric - but it's not for me.  Because it means change for all of us in the fundamental way we decide who's going to run our national government.

That issue is term limits, which I oppose.  For very sound reasons.  Former Idaho Gov. Cecil Andrus - a friend and former employer whose political judgments I had great faith in - put his position this way: "It may be necessary to break the rules of incumbency that allow politicians to reward themselves with privileges no other citizen receives.  Job security."

Another political pro, whose counsel I value - Dr. Norm Ornstein of American University.  He noted gridlock, unbridled anger and stalemate in congress when he said "Political euthanasia may be the only way to end it."

In other words, everybody out!  Over a period of two or three elections. Under term limits, replace 'em all.  The good and the bad.  Cleanse the place from wall-to-wall and gradually seat 535 new ones.  Stagger terms so there is continuity and some institutional memory.  But do it!  Guarantee fresh blood and new ideas coming from the people at each election.  No more career politicians.

It sounds good.  You can make a workable model on paper.  But the hurdles to make such a basic change in our national and state governance are many.

The most difficult to overcome would be a change in our federal constitution.  Congress - made up entirely of the people you are trying to replace - would have to approve it.  You'd need a two-thirds majority of states to adopt it.  Next,  the same sort of administrative/political steps in approving changes to the 50 state constitutions.  Or, conversely, you could start in the 50 states, then tackle the federal document.  Nearly impossible either direction.

All of that would take years.  Maybe so many years no one now alive would live to see it completed.  No easy task.  You'd have to get an overwhelming show of national public support, create many new entities to carry the message and assure the proper changes are made, then find office seekers willing to participate in their own demise.

Hardest of all would be dealing with the politicians who would have to put a gun to their own heads.  And an end to their own careers.  Many years ago, the wise, late Rep. "Mo" Udall (D-AZ) told me "You've got to keep in mind everybody back here got here by learning the rules and winning by them.  Don't look for winners to change the rules."

And, therein may lie the Achilles heel to this whole term limits business.  Much as a lot of people - right and left - would like to implement it, they may be just barking at the moon because of the legal requirements it would take to chance the Constitution.  I've never forgotten Udall's words.  Those who would make term limits their passion should remember them, too.

While admitting the system needs change - and even agreeing in principle term limits could lead to something positive - I think of the good works of a guy like Andrus as four-term Idaho governor and the Carter Administration's Secretary of the Interior.  When you term limit a Marjorie Taylor-Green, you also lose a legacy-creator like Andrus.  And the "Mo" Udall's.

Facing the huge task and costs of changing the electoral system - and with the certainty that you'd probably shut out some new and very bright minds with much to contribute to our national gain - I'm still hearing the idea of change.  But, maybe we're just not quite up to making the trade-offs.