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Show Editorials Four-Year Terms? "The House of Representatives shall be composed of members chosen every second year by the people of the several states" Art. I, Section 2, U.S. Constitution. So did the founding fathers establish the manner and term for which the lower house of the National Legislature shall be elected. But President Lyndon B. Johnson, in his State of the Union address asked Congress to initiate a Constitutional Constitu-tional Amendment changing the term of office for the House members to four years. His recommendation, if adopted, would admittedly give the House of Representatives time to accomplish something. As it is, the freshman representatives spend one year of their term learning about their job and the second year campaigning for re-election. But the framers of the Constitution had several reasons rea-sons for establishing the House of Representatives in the manner which they did. The first was to keep the Representatives Repre-sentatives close to the people. The bi-annual elections allow for shifts in public opinion, and also discipline the legislators (theoretically) to stay close to the wants and needs of their constituants, for a bad voting record is not as easily forgotten in two years as in four. This two year term is one of the integral parts of our Constitutional check and balance system. If the four year term is adopted by Congress and three-fourths of the states and becomes a Constitutional Amendment it will present several interesting situations. First of all, when a majority of the members of the House of Representatives ride into office on the coattails of a popular President, as happened in 1964, it gives their party a popular mandate which lasts entirely too long. These legislators owe their jobs to the President, and are politically aligned with him. They are almost certain to rubberstamp everything the President slides across their desks. If the people who elected them decide they do not like the President's brand of government, and therefore their representatives, they have to wait four long years to do anything about it. Secondly, they can ignore their constituants desires on legislation and again have four years before answering to their actions. If the House of Representatives are going to insist on lengthening their terms in office, perhaps they could compromise with the Constitution. The proposed amendment amend-ment could allow for four year terms, staggered so that only - half of the House is elected every two years, thus : eliminating many of the problems attendant in both the Constitutional provision and President Johnson's proposal. |