Both Congressman C.W. Bill Young, R-Indian Shores, and Congresswoman Kathy Castor, D-Tampa, held fund-raisers this month. While the two incumbents’ re-election dynamics are obviously different, they did share this constant. House members are virtually always in campaign mode. Barely six months ago both were re-elected. Now fund-raising is well underway. Again. Or still.
It might seem heretical, but isn’t the constitutional concept of a two-year term, for all of its accountability-to-the-will-of-the-people rationales, just too short for modern political reality? House members, originally envisioned as short-time, public-trust holders who would soon return to civilian life, are realistically never far removed from the nearly continuous, fund-raising loop.
Wouldn’t spending less time campaigning and fund-raising and more time addressing the nation’s pressing priorities be more in keeping with what the Founding Fathers had in mind for the voices of the “People’s House”? Wouldn’t, say, three-year terms make more sense in the 21st century?