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(CNN) — Anti-establishment candidates are capitalizing on widespread anti-incumbent fervor and proposing term limits as a way to bring the power back to the people.

As political hopefuls try to persuade voters to send them to Congress, they’re also promising they won’t be there long.

Kentucky Republican Senate candidate Rand Paul said that if elected, he can’t see himself serving more than two terms. In Rhode Island, Democratic congressional hopeful Bill Lynch has proposed a 12-year cap in the House and Senate. And in Maryland, Republican Andy Harris has assured voters that, should he go to the U.S. House, he’ll be out of there by 2023.

It’s a message that polls well and gets applause at campaign rallies, but David King, director of Harvard’s program for Newly Elected Members of the U.S. Congress, said term limits do more harm than good.

“It’s political junk food. It tastes good but hurts the body politic in the long run,” he said.

Advocates and opponents of term limits are after the same thing: keeping the power out of the hands of lobbyists and special interests.

King says term limits do the opposite by taking the business of lawmaking away from elected representatives and giving it to professional staff and lobbyists.

Instead, the elections process needs better campaign finance laws and a more engaged electorate, he said.

“That leads to a situation in which we reward politicians or statesmen or stateswoman who have been around for a long time and are terrific, while at the same time being able to get rid of the low-quality legislators at all levels,” King said.

But Philip Blumel, president of U.S. Term Limits, points to the high re-election rates as evidence of the need for term limits.

Re-election rates have hovered around 96 percent in the House and 85 percent in the Senate over the past 10 years, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.

The average length of service for lawmakers in the current session of Congress is 5.5 terms in the House and 2.2 terms in the Senate, according to the Congressional Research Service.

“You have a situation where you have a long-standing relationship between special interests and an incumbent who can’t lose, and that is a toxic combination, and that’s most of the Congress,” Blumel said. “Term limits ensure regular, competitive elections. They permit change.”

It’s a debate as old as the Constitution that term-limit supporters hope to amend.

Alexander Hamilton spoke against limits, writing in Federalist Paper No. 72 that, “Nothing appears more plausible at first sight, nor more ill-founded upon close inspection.”

Thomas Jefferson, however, said term limitation, at least of the president, was necessary “to prevent every danger which might arise to American freedom from continuing too long in office.”

After the Constitution was drafted, Jefferson said one aspect he disliked was “the abandonment in every instance of the necessity of rotation in office, and most particularly in the case of the President.”

“If you value rotation in office, like the founders did, we need some kind of codified term limits,” Blumel said.

Fifteen states have term limits for state lawmakers. Another six states have agreed to term limits in the past, but the limits were repealed by the legislature or overturned by the courts, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.

Most of the states with term limits got them through a ballot initiative, a process that only 24 states have.

Jennie Bowser, who tracks term limits for the NCSL, said that while voters are generally supportive of term limits, some studies have shown negative effects that aren’t obvious to the average voter, such as a loss of influence in the legislature to the executive branch and a loss of policy champions who spend years building expertise in certain subjects.

“They’re sort of inside the legislature, under-the-dome kind of things that people who are close to the legislature notice … but no legislature has had to go out of business because term limits wrecked them, so it’s not stuff that is visible to voters,” she said.

The new wave of calls for term limits is reminiscent of the lead-up to the 1994 elections. Armed with a legislative agenda called the “Contract with America,” Republicans put forth a message with an emphasis on term limits.

The GOP took back control of the House and Senate for the first time in nearly 50 years, and, for the first time ever, the House voted on legislation that would limit representatives to six two-year terms and senators to two six-year terms.

The vote was 227–204 — a simple majority, but not the two-thirds required for a constitutional amendment.

At the time, 23 states had passed laws imposing term limits on their federal lawmakers, but in May of 1995, two months after the House vote, the Supreme Court ruled that doing so was unconstitutional.

“Allowing individual States to adopt their own qualifications for congressional service would be inconsistent with the Framers’ vision of a uniform National Legislature representing the people of the United States. If the qualifications set forth in the text of the Constitution are to be changed, that text must be amended,” Justice John Paul Stevens wrote.

In order to pass a constitutional amendment on term limits, the House and Senate would have to pass legislation with a two-thirds majority, and then three-fourths of the state legislatures would have to ratify it.

South Carolina Republican Sen. Jim DeMint introduced a bill to limit lawmakers to six years in the House and 12 years in the Senate.

DeMint’s bill has yet to come up for a vote, but for Blumel, the outlook is good.

“There are periods in history where term limits are at the fore, and if the people of the country want them and demand them now, we have as good a chance as any that we ever had to have them. So it’s an exciting time,” he said.

But King says that even if the idea had the support of the president and Congress, he is confident that the American public would reject it.

“The evidence after 20 years of this in state legislatures is crystal clear: term limits empower special interests, lobbyists and long-time staffers and they work against the interests of the American people,” he said.

The reason the issue polls well, King said, is because there hasn’t been a vigorous dialogue about it.

“People are reacting by their instinct and anger, which is understandable. But sometimes instinct and anger take us in the wrong direction,” he said.

Term limits like ‘political junk food’

Washington (CNN) — The Department of Veterans Affairs unveiled new regulations Monday making it easier for men and women who served in the armed forces to receive benefits for post-traumatic stress disorder.

Current department rules require veterans to document events like firefights or bomb explosions that could have caused the disorder. Such documentation was often time-consuming and difficult, and sometimes was impossible.

Under the new rules a veteran only needs to demonstrate that he or she served in a war and performed a job during which events could have happened that could cause the disorder.

“With this new PTSD regulation, we are acknowledging the inherently stressful nature of the places and circumstances of military service, in which the reality and fear of hostile or terrorist activities is always present,” said Michael Walcoff, the VA’s acting undersecretary for benefits.

The new rule “will potentially benefit all veterans, regardless of their period of service and it is not limited to veterans with direct combat experience,” he stressed.

Wolcoff noted that over 400,000 veterans currently receive compensation benefits for PTSD.

In his weekly address on Saturday, President Barack Obama called the change a “long overdue step.”

“For years, many veterans with PTSD who have tried to seek benefits — veterans of today’s wars and earlier wars — have often found themselves stymied. They’ve been required to produce evidence proving that a specific event caused their PTSD. And that practice has kept the vast majority of those with PTSD who served in non-combat roles, but who still waged war, from getting the care they need,” Obama said.

“I don’t think our troops on the battlefield should have to take notes to keep for a claims application. And I’ve met enough veterans to know that you don’t have to engage in a firefight to endure the trauma of war. So we’re changing the way things are done.”

Under the new rules, no benefits will be passed along until a Veterans Affairs psychiatrist or psychologist confirms that a veteran actually suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder. Department officials say that should reduce the risk of fraudulent claims.

One congressional analysis reportedly put the cost of the new changes at $5 billion.

Obama said the new process “will help veterans not just of the Afghanistan and Iraq wars, but generations of their brave predecessors who proudly served and sacrificed in all our wars.”

“It’s a step that proves America will always be here for our veterans, just as they’ve been there for us. We won’t let them down. We take care of our own,” he said.

CNN’s Larry Shaughnessy contributed to this report

Feds roll out new PTSD benefits for veterans

Moscow, Russia (CNN) — The United States and Russia completed a spy swap Friday, exchanging the agents on chartered planes at an airport in Vienna, Austria, a U.S. official and Russian media said.

The plane carrying 10 Russian agents, who were expelled from the United States on Thursday for intelligence gathering, landed at Moscow’s Domodedovo Airport on Friday afternoon, the airport press office said.

A separate plane believed to be carrying four people convicted of spying for the United States was scheduled to land at Washington’s Dulles International Airport shortly before 5:30 p.m.

“The United States has successfully transferred 10 Russian agents to the Russian Federation and the Russian Federation has released four individuals who had been incarcerated in Russia,” Dean Boyd, a spokesman for the National Security Division at the U.S. Department of Justice, said in a statement released just as the plane landed in Moscow. “The exchange of these individuals … has been completed.”

The elaborately choreographed transfer — which took place while the planes sat on the ground for about an hour — was reminiscent of a scene from the Cold War.

The 10 pleaded guilty in the United States on Thursday for failing to register as foreign agents and were ordered out of the country. They then boarded a U.S.-chartered flight accompanied by U.S. marshals, a federal law enforcement source said.

Video: Spy swap between U.S., Russia

Video: Russian spies: Deal or no deal?

Video: Accused spy responds to photos

“As a result of the successful exchange … the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York has requested that the court dismiss any remaining charges against the 10 Russian agents,” U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara said Friday.

In Washington, Attorney General Eric Holder said none of the 10 had passed classified information and therefore none was charged with espionage.

“They were acting as agents to a foreign power,” he told CBS News, referring to the Russians who, U.S. officials have said, had been under observation by federal authorities for more than a decade.

Four young children of the Russian agents are now in Russia, according to attorneys for the agents. Two older children are no longer in the United States, though their exact location is unknown. Another two older children have remained in America, the attorneys indicated.

White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel told PBS’ “NewsHour” that although the 10 agents didn’t plead guilty to being spies, they “were clearly caught in the business of spying.”

In a conference call with reporters, senior administration officials said the agents agreed never to return to the United States without permission from the U.S. government.

Holding them would have conferred no security benefit to the nation, they said.

This “clearly serves the interests of the United States,” one official said.

A second official said the four prisoners in Russia were in failing health, a consideration that prompted quick completion of the deal.

Under the plea agreements, the defendants disclosed their true identities in court and forfeited assets attributable to the criminal offenses, the Justice Department said in a news release.

“Defendants Vicky Pelaez, Anna Chapman and Mikhail Semenko, who operated in the United States under their true names, admitted that they are agents of the Russian Federation; and Chapman and Semenko admitted they are Russian citizens,” the Justice Department said.

Carlos Moreno, an attorney for Pelaez, said his client does not want to take up residence in Russia and would prefer ultimately to live in her native Peru or in Brazil, where she has family. Pelaez hopes to continue her work as a journalist, according to Moreno.

Pelaez told the court that Moscow promised her free housing in Russia and a $2,000 monthly stipend for life, as well as visas for her children to travel to see her. Pelaez and her husband, both naturalized American citizens, were stripped of that citizenship as a part of the plea deal.

Authorities have lost track of an 11th suspect, who was detained in Cyprus, released on bail, and then failed to check in with authorities as he had promised to do.

In Moscow, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev signed a decree Friday pardoning the four individuals imprisoned for alleged contact with Western intelligence agencies, the Kremlin press service said, according to state-run RIA Novosti.

Though the four Russians were released to the custody of the United States, that does not necessarily mean they would go to America, an embassy spokesman said.

“Three of the Russian prisoners were convicted of treason in the form of espionage on behalf of a foreign power and are serving lengthy prison terms,” the Justice Department said in a letter to U.S. District Judge Kimba M. Wood, who handled the case in the United States. “The Russian prisoners have all served a number of years in prison and some are in poor health. The Russian government has agreed to release the Russian prisoners and their family members for resettlement.”

It added, “Some of the Russian prisoners worked for the Russian military, and/or for various Russian intelligence agencies. Three of the Russian prisoners have been accused by Russia of contacting Western intelligence agencies while they were working for the Russian (or Soviet) government.”

The individuals pardoned by Russia are Alexander Zaporozhsky, Gennady Vasilenko, Sergei Skripal, and Igor Sutyagin.

All four appealed to the Russian president to free them after admitting their crimes against the Russian state, press secretary Natalia Timakova said.

But in Washington, State Department spokesman Mark Toner denied Thursday that Sutyagin had been a spy.

The Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs said the move was made “in the general context of improving Russian-American relations, and the new dynamic they have been given, in the spirit of basic agreements at the highest level between Moscow and Washington on the strategic character of Russian-American partnership.”

CNN’s Dugald McConnell contributed to this report

U.S., Russia swap spies at Vienna airport

By

Mark Trumbull,

By

Cheryl Sullivan,

Washington (CNN) — Republicans lined up on opposite sides Sunday over comments by the chairman of the Republican National Committee that the Afghanistan war launched by former President George W. Bush was “of (President Barack) Obama’s choosing” and may be unwinnable.

Speaking from Afghanistan, GOP Sens. John McCain of Arizona and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina lambasted Michael Steele for the comments, which McCain called “wildly inaccurate” and Graham characterized as “uninformed, unnecessary, unwise, untimely,” while follow Republican Sen. Jim DeMint of South Carolina said Steele should apologize to the military.

However, conservative GOP Rep. Ron Paul of Texas, in a statement to CNN, supported Steele and said the RNC chairman’s characterization of the war was correct.

“He is guiding the party in the right direction and we (the GOP) are on the verge of victory this fall,” said Paul, who mounted an unsuccessful bid for the GOP presidential nomination in 2008. “Chairman Steele should not back off. He is giving the country, especially young people, hope as he speaks truth about this war.”

Video: Paul praises Steele’s comments

In comments at a Republican fundraiser in Connecticut Thursday, a YouTube video shows the RNC chairman declaring of the war in Afghanistan, “This was a war of Obama’s choosing.”

“This is not something the United States actively prosecuted or wanted to engage in,” he added.

Steele has stepped back from his original comments by emphasizing his support for the war.

“The stakes are too high for us to accept anything but success in Afghanistan,” Steele said in a statement intended to clarify his controversial comments.

It may be too late for him. Prominent Republican voices are calling for Steele’s resignation, including Liz Cheney, a former State Department official and the daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney; Weekly Standard editor William Kristol and former South Carolina GOP chairman Katon Dawson, who finished second to Steele in the RNC chairman’s race last year.

Both McCain and Graham questioned Steele’s ability to keep his job, but said it was up to Steele and the RNC to make that decision.

“I think that Mr. Steele is going to have to assess whether he can still lead the Republican Party as chairman of the Republican National Committee,” McCain said on the ABC program “This Week.” Graham said in a separate interview on the CBS program “Face the Nation” that Steele’s comments did not represent mainstream GOP thinking.

“It’s not the Republican Party’s position, my Republican Party’s position,” Graham said.

At the same time, Graham joked that “the good news is Michael Steele is backtracking so fast he’s going to be in Kabul fighting here pretty soon.”

DeMint, in an interview on “FOX News Sunday,” called Steele’s comments unacceptable.

Steele “needs to apologize to our military, all the men and women who’ve been fighting in Afghanistan,” DeMint said, adding: “This is a war we can win and we must win.”

Paul, meanwhile, wants the United States to withdraw its troops from Afghanistan.

“I would like to congratulate Michael Steele for his leadership on one of the most important issues of today,” Paul said. “He is absolutely right: Afghanistan is now Obama’s war. During the 2008 campaign, Obama was out in front in insisting that more troops be sent to Afghanistan. Obama called for expanding the war even as he pretended to be a peace candidate.”

Steele’s critics are supporting “Nancy Pelosi and Barack Obama’s war,” Paul said of the Democratic House speaker and president.

“The American people are sick and tired spending hundreds of billions of dollars a year, draining our economy and straining our military,” Paul said. “Michael Steele has it right and Republicans should stick by him.”

However, Pelosi last week voted for an amendment to a Pentagon spending bill that would have placed tough restrictions on funding for the war in Afghanistan — including a demand for a detailed troop withdrawal plan and a threat to pull money for the war if the military stays beyond next summer.

The amendment failed, but more than half the House Democratic caucus and nine Republicans voted for it, despite a White House veto threat if the final bill included the provision.

Both Graham and McCain said the United States must remain in Afghanistan as long as it takes to achieve the goal of preventing the country from again falling under Taliban control and becoming a safe haven for al Qaeda.

“The reason we came here is to secure America,” Graham said, adding it was “imperative we say to our friends and enemies alike we’re not leaving here until we’ve succeeded.”

CNN’s Mark Preston and Tom Cohen contributed to this report

Republicans take sides over latest Steele controversy

Washington (CNN) — One of the most famous veterans of the “Greatest Generation” has joined the ranks of recently injured members of the military at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center.

Former Sen. Bob Dole was so badly wounded 65 years ago that he almost didn’t make it off the battlefield. Now, he is recovering from surgery alongside troops injured in Iraq and Afghanistan.

“I’m just sort of one of the group. We show up at 10 o’clock and do our stuff,” Dole said as he pedaled a stationary bike during a morning physical therapy session.

Dole, who turns 87 this month, is at Walter Reed for rehabilitation connected to knee replacement surgery. A bout with pneumonia lengthened his post-op recuperation, so he’s been with the young troops since they arrived from the battlefield.

“I’ve been here long enough to watch when they first came in, and then to see them today. Whether it’s Lee or Chris or Levi, it’s amazing,” Dole said, as he watches Army Spc. Levi Crawford do a step exercise. “He couldn’t stand up on that step yesterday.”

As a veteran-turned-lawmaker, Dole has advocated for the nation’s veterans throughout his career, including serving as co-chair of a 2007 presidential commission that investigated shoddy conditions at Walter Reed, but he has nothing but praise for the medical care he has seen.

He marvels at the stark contrast between treatment today and his own experience in 1945, which left his right arm paralyzed.

“These modern medical miracles, you see them every day here,” he said. “If they’re wounded on one day, they can be in Walter Reed the third day. It took me nine hours to get off a battlefield. It took me weeks to get home.”

Dole sympathizes with Air Force Sgt. Christopher Curtis, 32, who was in dire shape after his CV-22 Osprey crashed in Afghanistan back in April.

“I couldn’t move. I was in a body cast,” Dole said. “That’s all behind me, but it does give you pause. I think about, ‘Jiminy – was I ever in as bad as shape as Chris?’”

Curtis said recovering alongside Dole has inspired him.

“Knowing that I’m going through what (Dole) went through…I’m not in a full body cast or anything like that,” he said. “They’ve basically eliminated that factor and here I am already in rehab (thanks to) surgeries and advanced technologies.”

The servicemembers said that when Dole comes to physical therapy, he always talks to everyone in the room, including family members who are always by their side — just like his mother was there for him 65 years ago.

While opinions about wars may change, Dole said, a family’s support is “one of those values that never changes.”

Everyone welcomes the former senator’s wise-cracking sense of humor.

“He’s a very funny guy, so he keeps everybody around him laughing and in good spirits,” Curtis said.

Dole is even willing to take a few jabs at himself and his failed run for president in 1996.

After Curtis told him he voted for him for president, Dole called him “a smart fella,” then deadpanned, “I finally found somebody that voted for me.”

Dole said he doesn’t dwell on how close he came to becoming president.

“You’ve got to move on, you know. Life’s short you got to keep pushing and realize we live in a great country,” he said. “One chapter ends and another chapter starts. You keep going.”

Army Sgt. Lee Langley, 26, said knowing how much Dole has accomplished after being seriously wounded on the battlefield gives him, and troops with more severe injuries than his, hope.

“It just means that I have all the opportunities in the world,” Langley said. “A lot of people are paralyzed, a lot of people don’t have legs or arms, but they can still have a good life afterwards.”

Surrounded by his young friends at the end of physical therapy, Dole makes a few wisecracks about age with Crawford, Curtis, and Langley like he’s one of the group.

“This is what America is all about, right here,” Dole said, pointing to the young troops.

Dole’s rehab inspires troops

By

Patrik Jonsson,

By

Linda Feldmann,

Toronto, Ontario (CNN) — President Obama arrived in Ontario on Friday for a series of high-stakes economic meetings with leaders from around the world.

Obama, who was greeted in Toronto by America’s ambassador to Canada, David Jacobson, is set to meet first with his counterparts in the G-8 nations, followed a broader G-20 summit over the weekend.

The meetings are taking place against a backdrop of continued economic uncertainty, with demands for more government stimulus balanced against fears of runaway deficits. At home, the Obama administration is struggling to push a new economic relief package through an increasingly skittish, debt-wary Congress. Overseas — particularly in Europe — leaders are increasingly being forced to enact unpopular fiscal austerity measures.

Also hovering over this weekend’s meetings is the specter of protests and violence, which have plagued other recent meetings of world economic leaders.

Friday morning, before departing the White House, Obama referred to agreements reached in the first two G-20 summits he attended and added, “This weekend in Toronto, I hope we can build on this progress by coordinating our efforts to promote economic growth, to pursue financial reform, and to strengthen the global economy.

Video: Poised to pass financial reform

“We need to act in concert for a simple reason: This (recent economic) crisis proved and events continue to affirm that our national economies are inextricably linked — and just as economic turmoil in one place can quickly spread to another, safeguards in each of our nations can help protect all nations.”

Obama fears that a rollback too soon from government stimulus packages would send the world back into recession. The European Union, on the other hand, has sent a letter to all G-20 leaders asking for substantial budget cuts to come no later than 2011.

Also high on the agenda will be reforms to global banking regulations. Although all G-20 nations have pledged banking reforms, the reforms being considered in Europe and North America are diverging. Britain, France and Germany are calling for taxes on banks to pay down deficits and cushion future financial shocks. The U.S. government wants to discourage additional taxes, which officials fear would stunt consumer demand.

The weekend’s sessions will offer a first appearance on the world stage for British Prime Minister David Cameron and Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan. Both leaders arrived in Toronto on Thursday.

The G-8 meeting opens Friday at Deerhurst Resort in the Muskoka region of Ontario. The G-20 meeting opens Saturday in Toronto.

CNN’s Jim Boulden contributed to this report

Obama in Canada for economic summit