By Seton Motley | Jan 27, 2021 8:27 AM ET

I appreciate Senator Ted Cruz’s effort – and his many other efforts – but his bill ending endless Congressional terms isn’t a solution.

I am loathe to question Senator Cruz on Constitutional questions – but his bill raises Constitutional questions. We had to amend the Constitution to term-limit presidents. I would imagine we’d need to do the same thing to do the same thing to Congressmen.

And it almost certainly isn’t a practical solution. How many members of Congress will vote to limit their time as members of Congress?

Meanwhile, term limits just turn more elected officials more rapidly into more lobbyists.

And term limits accidentally, massively over-empower residual Hill staffers – who aren’t elected and aren’t term limited.

All of which is demonstrably worse than what we have now.

To solve the problems – we must address the actual problems. Implementing term limits doesn’t do that.

In the House – that means ending gerrymandering. For the Senate – we must repeal the Seventeenth Amendment.

In the House:

Gerrymandering?:

“(A) practice intended to establish an unfair political advantage for a particular party or group by manipulating district boundaries….

“Two principal tactics are used in gerrymandering.

“‘Cracking’ (i.e. diluting the voting power of the opposing party’s supporters across many districts).

“And ‘packing’ (concentrating the opposing party’s voting power in one district to reduce their voting power in other districts).”

Gerrymandering is government officials choosing us – rather than us choosing them. //

Term limits replace old Nancy Pelosis with…young Nancy Pelosis. Because 80+% of Congressional districts are gerrymandered to an overwhelming Democrat or Republican advantage. //

In the Senate:

Seventeenth Amendment?:

“(E)stablished the direct election of United States senators in each state. The amendment supersedes Article I, §3, Clauses 1 and 2 of the Constitution, under which senators were elected by state legislatures.”

We must return to the pre-Seventeenth Amendment status quo. Because it served as a massive check on federal spending – and myriad other overreaches. //

Term limits is a top-down, DC-centered “fix” – to problems caused by top-down, DC-centered “fixes.” That actually fixes nothing. And actually makes things worse.

The real solution is to fix the actual, original problems.

End gerrymandering – and repeal the Seventeenth Amendment.

And restore the proper accountability, roles and responsibilities of government at every level.