The attitude in Washington seems to have raised an important question for those of us in Hoover:
 
Is it time for a change in the 6th Congressional District representation?
 
The Honorable Spencer Bachus has been our congressman since 1993 and is running for another term.  Read his bio on the link.  It's rather interesting.
 
Personally I like Mr. Bachus.  I met him in 1997 after requesting a meeting with him.  I had a question for him regarding some banking regulations that were a topic on a local radio talk show and, instead of taking the words of the hosts of that talk show, I decided to ask the congressman, my congressman, myself.
 
I called his office during the August recess and asked to have a meeting with him.  I was asked what the topic was about and I told his assistant.  A meeting was scheduled and I was told it would be for 20 minutes.  
 
After arriving on the day of the meeting, I was ushered in to Rep. Bachus' office and we talked for 20 minutes.  Then we talked for another 40 minutes.  I found him to be a very friendly individual, very personable.
 
In 2007 I had a need to speak to him again and followed the same procedure to schedule another meeting.  Again I called during the August recess.  I was asked why I wanted to speak to Mr. Bachus and was informed that Mr. Bachus had no time to meet with anyone, that his schedule was full.  I found this to be rather odd.  I was under the impression that when a constituent wants to speak to his elected official, that some time could be made for that constituent.  It seems I was wrong.
 
I am a very strong proponent of term limits for government officials.  I believe that the longer an elected official is in office, the more he can be "influenced" by campaign contributors.  I've always said that should I ever run for office, I will cap the amount that can be contributed to the campaign.  It seems to me that the more money is donated to a political campaign, the more that candidate "owes" to the contributor.  There's some evidence of that in our current administration.  Therefore, the length of time someone can serve in a particular position should be capped.  My own belief is that a congressman should serve no more than 3 terms and a senator no more than 2 terms.  Should that individual want to run for the other office after his/her terms are over, they are more than welcome to.
 
The term limit issue is starting to gain steam, as people are getting sick and tired of career politicians like Sen. Robert Byrd (D-WV) (51 years in the Senate), the late Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-MA)(47 years), and the current record holder, Rep. John Dingell (D-MI), 54 years and counting.  54 years.  I'm willing to be that there's very few people reading this forum that were even alive when Mr. Dingell was first elected.  The Founding Fathers never thought that term limits would need to be included into the Constitution, as the average life expectancy in 1776 was 35 years.  One or two terms and that person would most likely be dead.  Rep. Dingell is 83.  Sen Strom Thurmond was in his 90s.  Things have obviously changed in the past 200 years regarding how long someone is going to be around.  Of course the current life expectancy of 78 years should go up now that we have Nationalized Health Care, so term limits becomes an even bigger issue.
 
Rep. Bachus has served his district well, but it's time for him to move on.  He's 62 years old and has lived off the public money long enough, and even in retirement, will continue to do so thanks to a generous pension.
 
Who should take his place?  Currently there are three people running against him.  They are:
 
Stan Cooke (R)
Pastor & College Instructor  
 
Paul Lambert (R)
TV Show Producer & Ron Paul Campaign Activist  
 
Walden Retan (D)
Retired Physician & Korean War Veteran  
 
The above links were taken directly from USElections.com, which tracks who is running in each state.  
 
After reading each candidate's web site, it seems only Dr. Cooke addresses term limits directly.  Mr. Lambert does not speak about them and Dr. Retan doesn't think having a web site that talks about him is important.
 
The filing deadline for running against Rep. Bachus is next month.  Perhaps we'll see more people throwing their hat in the ring.  The odds of someone beating Rep. Bachus are pretty slim (look at the chart on the Wikipedia web site under Electoral History).  Mr. Bachus, in the last 4 elections (2008 is not listed), received an average of 95% of the vote!  What does that say about him?  Either he's doing a bang-up job or he's got so much cash that nobody wants to oppose him.  According to OpenSecrets.org, he's got nearly $700,000 cash on hand.  You decide why nobody is successful at opposing him.
 
It's time for a change, folks.  From the top down, it's time for a change.  We can either continue the status quo, which is not working, or we can choose to do something about it.  
 
Take a look at the candidates listed on the above link.  
 
I am going to work on having all of the candidates speak in Bluff Park before the June primary and will post it here if anyone would like to come up and listen to them.