While I agree with Glenn Reynolds’ basic observation…

“@washingtonpost: Would we be better without midterm elections? A political reporter makes the case” Must look bad for Dems this year…

— Instapundit.com (@instapundit) May 4, 2014

…about this Washington Post article calling for four-year terms for the House of Representatives, I also would like to propose an amusing game for dealing with advocates of such a change. Ask them, sweetly, if they were prepared to accept a compromise where House elections were four-year terms… and they were all during what we now call the midterms. Then watch them squirm*.

Personally, I think that the system works just fine now at what it does; which is, it keeps a bunch of politically ambitious and driven people running in circles and sniping at each other for very little purpose, except for the occasional piece of legislation. The last thing that we want is for them to get comfortable: I mean, geez, look at the Senate. Certainly the Founders would, largely with horrified expressions on their faces…

Moe Lane (crosspost)

PS: Note, of course, that the real reason the Left has for wanting to switch House elections from every two years to every four – the same year as the Presidential one – is to make meaningless the GOP’s ability to drive turnout in midterm years. The Left just can’t say that, which is why they couch the argument in terms like this. Hence the counter-proposal, which happens to be just as reasonable as the original one on the surface, but likewise just as partisan… and the only argument against it is likewise partisan. And that’s why some of ’em will squirm.

*Well, the dumb ones will. The smart ones – the ones who know that we aren’t changing the Constitution over this any time soon** – will agree, and try to get further concessions. Don’t give ’em any.

**I guarantee, though, that if there’s ever another Constitutional convention, this will be on the list. Just after the proposed ‘revisions’ of the Second, First, Second, Tenth, and Second Amendments.