By Marv Balousek
Whether presidents should be elected by direct popular vote or government officials should have term limits are popular proposals for amendments to the U.S. Constitution, according to Doug Hughes, who taught a class on the constitution at the Villages Lifelong Learning Colleges.
Hughes, who worked as a lobbyist for the American Trucking Associations, said these proposals got the most support from his students. He spoke Monday to members of the Villages Civil Discourse Club at Colony Cottage Recreation Center. The presentation will be repeated at 10 a.m. next Monday at the Savannah Center.
Enacting a constitutional amendment isn’t easy. It requires approval by a two-thirds vote by both houses of Congress and by three-fourths of state legislatures.
Direct election of the president would abolish the Electoral College and was the subject of a 2009 amendment proposal, Hughes said, adding that the change would impact elections in at least two ways.
“Campaigns now focus strictly on swing states,” he said. “If you got into a popular vote, they would need to campaign across the country.”
Hughes said the change also would empower members of the minority party in red and blue states because those votes would have more significance in adding to the nation’s overall total.
Term limits, he said, were part of the nation’s Articles of Confederation but somehow did not appear in the constitution.
Three dozen governors, 15 state legislatures and mayors in nine of the 10 largest cities are subject to term limits, he said.
In the 1990s, 23 states tried to enact term limits for their congressional representatives, but the U.S. Supreme Court ruled the states lacked authority over federal office holders. A constitutional amendment proposed this year would limit representatives to three terms and senators to two terms.
Hughes said the lack of term limits enhances the power of incumbency, which includes campaign money and gifts from the government like free mail and web sites.
“You get into an attitude of omnipotence,” he said. “Incumbency gives you among the best employment opportunities in America.”
Hughes said other constitutional amendments suggested by his students include reviving the Equal Rights Amendment, first proposed in the 1970s to grant more rights to women, and setting an age limit for judges. He said two of the 11 amendments suggested by the students were related to liberty and nine concerned government structure.
