Washington rewards failure. It’s time to send career politicians home

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Rep Anna Paulina Luna explains Congress’s low approval, calls for ethics reform

Rep.Anna Paulina Luna, R-Fla., attributes Congress’s 10% approval rating to members prioritizing personal gain over constituents’ needs.She details her efforts to expose the FEMA funds scandal and advocates for comprehensive House Ethics reform to address pervasive misconduct.Luna criticizes both parties for failing to hold members accountable for their actions and calls for transparency.

Washington, D.C., is broken.I don’t think that’s a controversial statement anymore.Eighty-three percent of Americans support term limits on Congress — and even more Alaskans do — and approval of Congress sits at around 12%.People aren’t wrong to feel that way.

I say this as someone who’s been there.Iwent to Congressto carry on the legacy of my Republican predecessor, Don Young, who spent decades putting Alaska first by working across the aisle and delivering real results.What I found was different: a place more focused on staying in power than getting things done, on trading stocks than passing laws, on keeping donors happy than keeping constituents afloat.

SENATE PLOTS PERMANENT END TO GOVERNMENT SHUTDOWNS WITH BIPARTISAN PUSH

Congress has become a performance.And working people are paying for it.

Corruption dominates.Our officials trade stocks while having access to insider information.They take meetings with the special interests bleeding working people dry.And while they’re cashing in, their constituents are facing skyrocketing prices.

I see it everywhere I go in Alaska.This used to be a place of abundance.Now, in every city, town and village, I hear the same thing: groceries and gas are through the roof, buying a home feels impossible, and people are choosing between heating their houses and putting food on the table.That’s not a red problem or a blue problem.That’s what happens when the people making decisions in Washington have stopped feeling the consequences of those decisions.

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The reasonimmigration hasn’t been fixedin decades isn’t that it’s too hard for us to wrap our heads around.It’s that the system rewards politicians for fighting about it, not solving it.The same goes for thecost of living,drug prices, housing— you name it.Career politicians have every incentive to keep the fight going and no real deadline to deliver.

That’s the problem term limits fix.

I’m calling for 12-year term limits on Congress.To those who serve in the House of Representativesor the Senate, if you can’t get something worthwhile done in 12 years, it’s time to go home.This isn’t radical.It’s accountability.The kind every working person in this country already lives with.

SENATE PLOTS PERMANENT END TO GOVERNMENT SHUTDOWNS WITH BIPARTISAN PUSH

The only people who don’t support term limits are the ones who benefit from not having them.The career politicians who’ve turned public service into a career advancement strategy.The committee chairs who’ve been in Washington so long their biggest donors are the industries they’re supposed to regulate.The members who go to Washington and come home three times richer than when they left.

My time in Congressmade it crystal clear to me that the system is rigged.Most members of Congress aren’t there to deliver;they’re there to stay in office and get rich along the way.The result is exactly what you’d expect: partisan gridlock, institutional rot, and corrupt policies engineered to benefit the same powerful special interests that fund the machine.

You can’t fix the cost of living without first fixing the people in charge of fixing it.

Our officials trade stocks while having access to insider information.They take meetings with the special interests bleeding working people dry.And while they’re cashing in, their constituents are facing skyrocketing prices.(Kevin Carter/Getty Images;

I’ve called on Alaska to lead bypassing term limitsat the state level to open a legal pathway through the courts.As Alaska’s next senator, I’ll fight to pass them federally.Alaska has led the country before ongovernment reform.We can do it again.

Term limits won’t solve everything.But they will force Congress to work on our timeline, not theirs.They’ll replace career politicians beholden to donors with representatives who actually have to deliver, because they know the clock is running.And they will help ensure that the voices of hardworking Americans are heard at the highest levels of government, not the voices of wealthy elites.

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Working people across this country can’t afford more of the same.We need a system that works for them, not career politicians and the shady special interests who keep them in their seats.

Red or blue, we all benefit from a Congress that has a deadline.

Mary Peltola is a lifelong Alaskan, a mother of seven, a former fishing boat captain, a gun owner, and a candidate for the United States Senate.Mary has spent her life fighting for Alaskans – lowering energy prices and improving public safety for rural Alaskans as the former chair of the Alaska State Legislature’s Bush Caucus, and standing up to the Biden administration to secure historic oil and gas investments for Alaska in the U.S.House of Representatives.