PolicyGuy

Friday, May 28, 2004


Politicians Raise More Money. So What's New?
The Detroit Free Press's political reporter, Chris Christoff, says that "State lawmakers are raising money this spring at an unprecedented pace." So what's new?

Also old news: an attempt to find (yet another) fault with term limits. Says one pol, "Term limits has had the opposite effect of what advocates said would happen. There's more politics, more fund-raising."

Politics practiced by politicians. Imagine that!

Term limits will not bring all-wise, detached policy professionals into the legislature. They can't, and no one should think they can.

On the other hand, term limits have worked as designed when it comes to bringing competition to politics: "Republican and Democratic caucuses now raise enough money to fund candidates in 30 to 40 selected House seats, about three times as many as before term limits." This should mean that more races than ever are competitive.

"Justice Louis D. Brandeis'?s metaphor of the states as "laboratories" for policy experiments ... had almost nothing to do with federalism and everything to do with his commitment to scientific socialism. .... To this day, it continues to inhibit a truly experimental, federalist politics." -- Michael S. Greve

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