A Supremely noteworthy month

It's been nearly 18 months since the attack on the U.S. Capitol, and in that time “January 6th” has become a collective shorthand, much the way “9/11” did 20 years ago or “December 7th” decades before that. All three represent a profoundly impactful event that we are often told to “never forget,” because they changed everything. But before those and other traumas had been permanently written on the national psyche, a singular date was (and still is) most connected to the American experience: July 4, 1776. Every year, we celebrate the Fourth of July because it, too, changed everything. Naturally, it marks a moment in time that deserves celebration—our declaration of independence. Yet, like those other three dates, it also marked the beginning of a period of challenge, sacrifice, and upheaval. The Fourth of July wasn't the end of the colonies’ struggle for freedom; it was only the beginning. The fight to expand liberty for all people has continued ever since. The road forward isn't easy for us either. It will take hard work and commitment to renew America in the post-January 6th world. There will be naysayers and setbacks. But the cause is no less worthy now than it has been for the last 246 years, and the prospect of a better, more peaceful and productive future always lies ahead. We're glad you're fighting the good fight with us. From all of us at RAM, happy Independence Day! —Melissa Amour, Managing Editor

• Mark Meadows’ associate threatened ex-White House aide —The Guardian

• Liz Cheney spars with GOP challengers over 2020 election, Jan. 6 attack in first primary debate —CBS News

• Russian missile strikes on Odesa kill 20 —CNN

• 5 lessons from the NATO summit —Politico

• Biden favors changing filibuster to codify Roe v. Wade —USA Today

The times they are a-changin’

The group of nine U.S. Supreme Court justices pictured above has disbanded, with the retirement this week of Justice Stephen Breyer. But boy, did they go out with a bang. More on that in a sec. The new court will include the newly sworn-in Ketanji Brown Jackson, the first Black woman to serve on the SCOTUS. She joins the high court’s shrinking liberal contingency, which has been trounced on a range of blockbuster decisions this past month. —The Boston Globe

• They took the power. In addition to conservative rulings handed down on cases involving abortion, guns, and religious rights, the court voted 6-3 on Thursday to limit the Environmental Protection Agency’s ability to regulate carbon emissions from power plants. The decision will make it tougher for President Biden to achieve his goal of cutting greenhouse gas emissions in half by the end of the decade. —The New York Times

• But it’s not all bad for the liberals, right? No. On immigration, the court sided 5-4 with the Biden Administration, allowing it to end a Trump-era policy known as "Remain in Mexico" that had forced thousands of asylum-seekers to wait south of the border while their claims were adjudicated. Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Brett Kavanaugh joined the three liberal justices in the majority. —ABC News

• This could be HUGE. Just after releasing its final opinions yesterday, the court agreed to hear arguments in Moore v. Harper, a case promoting a controversial legal theory that would consolidate elections power in the hands of state legislatures. Yikes. Stay tuned for that one. —Politico

MORE: The conservative Supreme Court is just getting warmed up —Politico

Term Limits: Pros and Cons

By Ali Backscheider

The approval rating of Congress is consistently below 20%, yet the reelection rate is over 95%. If Congress were a television show, it would be taken off the air and not return for another season.

Why are our elected officials able to keep their jobs despite abysmal performance results? 

Career politicians can stroll the Capitol's marble halls for decades and accomplish very little (except reelection) because our electoral system provides candidates with the wrong incentives. When Congress members are constantly thinking about reelection, they end up devoting more time to campaign fundraising instead of serving the people. This revolving door in DC is hard to break, and the average age of senators is now 64.3 years—the oldest in history.

On April 10, 2018, Mark Zuckerberg testified before a combined Senate Judiciary and Commerce Committee hearing on Capitol Hill to a group of out-of-touch lawmakers. Senators from both parties asked questions that revealed how little they know about the Facebook platform and technology in general. If they weren’t so busy focusing on reelection, maybe they would have had time to research the social media platform before the hearings. 

The advancing age of lawmakers is concerning, especially with the advancing pace of technological developments. 

So what can we do about this? 

An overwhelming 80% of voters approve of a Constitutional Amendment that will place term limits on members of Congress. More than three quarters of Americans agree that we shouldn’t send people to Washington for decades upon decades. It’s important to note that the only way to impose term limits on Congress is to amend the Constitution, which requires passage in 38 states. 

Let’s unpack the pros and cons of congressional term limits.

The Pros of Term Limits

Establishing term limits could motivate lawmakers to pass successful policy if they know that their time in D.C. has an expiration date. When there’s no clear end date to their term of service, Congresspeople lose the sense of urgency to address the issues they specifically ran to fix. What’s worse, they may find that holding out for “a perfect solution” keeps the issue as a valuable campaign talking point, even when their ideologically “perfect” solutions are impossible to enact.  A hard term limit could add pressure for our representatives to actually do the job we hired them to do. 

It would also rejuvenate Congress by bringing in new leaders with innovative ideas on a rotating basis. We live in the digital age. Every ounce of our lives is connected to the internet, wifi, computers, and the cloud—with new technologies emerging almost daily. Other aspects of our society and national identity can change just as rapidly. It’s important, then, that our legislators are reflective of multiple industries, communities, and generations. The power of unending incumbency often keeps Congress from reflecting the evolving social, technical, and cultural reality of our country. Fresh and innovative brains in the halls of Congress are what we need to continue to strive for greatness in the digital era. 

The Cons of Term Limits

There is the argument that experience is valuable, and that the longer you do a job, the better you get at it. Put it this way—you wouldn’t want your heart surgeon to be cutting you open their first day on the job, would you? You’d be far more comfortable with someone who had been performing that surgery for 20 years. Legislating is harder than many people want to acknowledge, and the level of expertise that Members of Congress can build over decades of work—for example, on tax policy—can be instrumental in addressing real legislative concerns. Terming out politicians would mean cutting short that expertise.

History has also shown that inexperienced legislators have a tendency to turn to special interests and lobbyists. Term limits could potentially risk advancing special interest causes in general, seeing as most influential former Members of Congress go to work for private sector lobbying firms.   

Finally, with term limits, legislators would have to rely more on unelected bureaucrats who have been working in the federal government for long enough to build up substantial institutional knowledge. This undermines the democratic nature of our institutions, if we begin to cede more and more power to people hired into positions of power, rather than elected into them by the will of the people.

Our lawmakers need to be incentivized to serve their constituents, not to serve their personal careers and interests. 

When our country was founded, there were no term limits.  And still, recognizing the need to hand the reins on to new leaders with new ideas and to resist the temptation of lifelong power, George Washington voluntarily left the presidency after only two terms.  Presidents after him for more than a century followed his example until FDR won four terms, and the nation realized that term limits were a necessity.  Have we reached that same turning point for Congressional terms now?

The solution to this is complex. It may be term limits. It may be election reform to change the incentives of the system. It may more likely be a combination of both options. One thing is clear—the current way we’re doing things is leading us towards disaster, and we must change it for the better.

Ali Backscheider is the social media and technology manager at the Forward Party.

This month’s read is: “Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation” by Joseph Ellis

Lately, I have asked myself, “WWOFFD?” What would our Founding Fathers do? With each passing day, American democracy seems frail, but as I have been reminded through this month’s Book Corner read, our democracy has prevailed through tumultuous times and emerged stronger than before. I first learned about “Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation,” by Joseph Ellis, from a professor who assigned it when I was in college. I would later become a professor who assigned this book to my college students. It’s that good.

“Founding Brothers” tells a story of when the United States was still a nascent country in 1790. The future of our democracy wasn’t guaranteed, but more of a hope. Each chapter serves as a window into a key moment in time, humanizing our Founding Fathers and bringing them to life with each turn of the page. Often we romanticize our Founding Fathers and think of them as demigods who were omniscient. Obviously, this wasn’t the case, but, man, did they get a lot of things right…and wrong. Nevertheless, Ellis does a great job at balancing euphoric recollection of history and the sobering reality of the hard times endured by our nation.

As we head into the holiday weekend and fire up the grills to celebrate another year of independence, I would encourage you to sit down with a copy of Joseph Ellis’ book and find solace in knowing that our Founding Fathers didn’t have it all figured out, but they worked together and as a result, American democracy has endured. There is no reason why in 2022, the great experiment can’t continue as long as we work together to put country over party. After all, isn’t that what our Founding Fathers would do? —Mary Anna Mancuso, National Spokeswoman, Renew America Movement

Have you read this? Share your thoughts with me on Twitter @MaryAnnaMancuso

Want to purchase this book? Click here.

Have a suggestion for our next monthly read? Send it my way: [email protected]

There's been a lot of talk lately around baseball that Chicago White Sox manager Tony LaRussa, already a member of the baseball Hall of Fame, may be too old to make the often abrupt, chess-move-like decisions required of a baseball manager. Mr. LaRussa was born in 1944.

This may be true, but at least the worst he could do is issue an intentional walk to the other team with the bases loaded in the bottom of the ninth inning of a tie game.

The last I checked, the manager of the Chicago White Sox does not have the responsibility for protecting over 300 million Americans.

Or the authority to unleash nuclear weapons.

Which brings us to two other men, also born in the 1940s, who have—and had—that responsibility and authority: Joe Biden and Donald Trump.

I recently watched videos of both men from the 1990s, when they were in their 50s, and was frankly astonished...and pleased...by what I saw.

No stumbling from Biden. No preening from Trump. Each responded to interviewers with both wit and coherence. Whether you agreed or disagreed with them was irrelevant; here were two intelligent men who stayed on point with succinct answers to difficult questions. The kind of people who could be entrusted to be the only person in America with the nuclear codes in his suit-jacket pocket.

The framers of the Constitution took pains to establish a minimum age for a president (35) but not a maximum age. Perhaps they should have.

In 2024 Joe Biden will be 82. Donald Trump will be 78. 82 and 78. If those were the first two rounds of golf at the Masters' Tournament, the golfer would be sent home before the weekend. 

This is why I suggest both Mr. Biden and Mr. Trump should forget running for president and consider applying for a job in 2024 in which they can do very little damage to the country they have both served: Manager of the Chicago White Sox

(You don't think Tony LaRussa will still be there in two years, do you?) —Jim V., New York

The views expressed in "What's Your Take?" are submitted by readers and do not necessarily reflect the views of the editorial staff, the Renew America Movement, or the Renew America Foundation.