[Richard]

Yes, because our forefathers never dreamed there would be such a thing as a career politician. They were somewhat naive as shown by the "standing army rule".

Text of Congressman Hyde's Floor Statement On Term Limits given during the House debate on term limits March 29, 1995

[QUOTE]"If someone told you on election day you had to vote for a certain candidate, you would wonder if you were back in the Soviet Union! But if someone tells you may not vote for a certain candidate because he's overqualified, what is the essential difference? Your range of choice has been limited -- and your fundamental right as a free American to freely elect whom you want to represent you has been abridged --

"If this were a trial, I'd call as my first witnesses the Founding Fathers who directly and unanimously rejected term limits. Chief Justice Earl Warren summed it up by quoting the Founding Fathers in the 1944 case of Powell vs McCormack: "A fundamental principle of our representative democracy is, in Hamilton's words, 'that the people should choose whom they please to govern them.' As Madison pointed out at the convention, this principle is undermined as much by limiting whom the people can select as by limiting the franchise itself."

"In 1788 during the New York debates on ratifying our Constitution, Robert Livingston asked, "Shall we then drive experience into obscurity? He called that an absolute abridgment of the people's rights.

"George Orwell once said it has become the task of the intellectual to defend the obvious -- and while I make no pretense at being an intellectual, defending experience over ignorance is certainly obvious.

"Have you ever been in a storm at sea? I was -- and I was terrified until I looked up at the bridge and the skipper was there sucking on his pipe -- an old Norwegian 45 years at sea and that was reassuring.

"When the dentist peers into your mouth with his drill whirring, don't you hope he's done this work for a few years?

"When the neuro-surgeon has shaved your head, and made the pencil line across your skull and he approaches with the electric saw -- ask him, won't you, one question: "Are you a careerist?"

"ls running a modern complex country of 250 million people and a $6 trillion economy all that easy? To do your job around here you've got to know something about environmental issues, health care, banking & finance and tax policy, the farm problems, weapons systems, Bosnia-Hertzegovina - North Korea, foreign policy, the administration of justice, crime and punishment, education, welfare, budgeting in the trillions of dollars, immigration. The list is endless and we need our best people to deal with these issues.

"We deal with ultimate questions -- war and peace - life and death -- drawing the line between liberty and order -- and do you really doubt that America will never again face a real crisis? With a revolving door Congress, where will we get Everett Dirksens, Scoop Jack sons, Hubert Humphreys, Barry Goldwaters, Arthur Vandenbergs and Sam Ervins?

"Where did Shim on Peres and Yitzak Rabin get the self confidence to negotiate peace with the P.L.O? Experience~ my friends, long bloody experience.

"To those of you who are overwhelmed by popularity of term limits let me remind you of what Edmund Burke told the electors of Bristol in 1744 -- that he owed them the highest fidelity, but he owed them his best judgment too -- and he didn't owe his conscience to anyone.

"l once told an incoming freshmen class at a luncheon speech, that you have to know the issues you are prepared to lose your seat over -- or you will do real damage here. To me, this is such an issue.

"The unstated premise of term limits is that we are progressively corrupted the longer we stay here -- To that, I say look around -- you'll see honest, decent, idealistic men and women in far greater ratio than most other occupations. The 12 Apostles had their Judas Iscariot, and I refuse to concede to the angry, pessimistic populism that drives this movement, because it is just dead wrong.

"Our negative campaigning and mudslinging have made anger the national recreation, but that's our fault, not the system's.

"America needs leaders, statesmen, and giants -- and you don't get them out of the phone book." New is always better? What's conservative about that? Have we nothing to learn from the past? Tradition, history, institutional memory -- don't they count anymore? Ignorance is salvageable, but stupid is forever.

"This isn't conservative -- it's a radical distrust of democracy -- it is cynical and pessimistic, devoid of the optimism and hope that built this country.

"This corrosive attack on the consent of the governed stems from two sources -- one, is well meaning but misguided, and the other are those who hate politics and politicians. Well, l love politics and politicians -- they invest the one commodity that can never be replaced, their time, their family life, their privacy and their reputation -- and for what? To make this a better country.

"Do incumbents have an advantage? Sometimes not. A challenger has no record to defend while an incumbent may have hundreds of votes to explain. But yes, an incumbent does have the advantage of name identification, and why not?

"lt's 11 p.m. on a snowy January night. l'm at a banquet honoring the mayor of a local town - I'm tired, and they haven't introduced the commissioner of streets yet, much less the mayor! But where is my opponent? Does he even know he's my opponent yet ? He's home, smoking a Macanudo, stroking his collie dog, sipping from a snifter of Courvoiser and watching an R-rated movie on cable. And I'm at my one-millionth banquet. Years of faithful constituent service - that's what gives an incumbent an advantage and, on the merits, it's deserved.

"The case for term limits is a rejection of professionalism in politics -- "career politician" is an epithet. Careerism, they say, places too much focus on getting re-elected and not on the public interest. That's a perfect non-sequitur. You get re-elected by serving the public interest. Professionals will run this government, only they will be the unelected, unaccountable, try to get them on the phone, permanent bureaucracy. There are two contradictory arguments for term limits -- one, we are too focused on re-election and not close enough to the people, and the George Will theory that we are too responsive to the people and need a constitutional distance from them. Any cause that depends on such conflicting theories is standing on two stools which as they separate will cause a serious hernia.

"Term limits limit the field of potential candidates -- what successful person in mid-life would leave a career at 50 and try and pick up that career at 56 or 62? This will become a sabbatical for the well to do elite and bored retirees.

"And so, the question of 1788 recurs: Shall we then drive experience into obscurity? Shall we perpetrate this absolute abridgment of the people's rights?

"Last June 6th I stood with Bob Michel, Sonny Montgomery and Sam Gibbons at Normandy -- and I heard the mournful, piercing sound of the British bag pipes playing Amazing Grace as they were scattered among the sea of crosses and Stars of David at the cemetery.

"I looked at some of the names on those crosses -- young men buried over a thousand miles from home -- and I saw a cross with the words, "Here lies in Honored Glory a Comrade in Arms Known but to God" and you realize he died in the cause of freedom -- and today you should realize that the right to choose who will represent you in Congress is a fundamental freedom. I can never vote to diminish that freedom -- and I hope you can't too."

"l speak for Sam Gibbons, Bob Stump. John Dingell, Sonny Montgomery and yes - Bob Dole. Fifty years ago our country needed us - and we came running!. l think our country still needs us. Why do you want to stop us from running? Why do want to drive experience into obscurity? Have you forgotten the report card we received last November?

"Trust the people!"

http://judiciary.house.gov/Legacy/010.htm[/QUOTE]