Bill Young passes away during his twenty second term in office

Bill Young, the longest serving Republican in Congress has died this past week due to complications from an injuring he received in an air crash that occurred in the nineteen seventies. At the time of his death Young was in his twenty second term of representing Florida’s thirteenth district in the House of Representatives. Regardless of his success in Congress, this raises an interesting question as to why a US representative can hold office for over 4 consecutive decades. In addition to that, why is it so easy for incumbents to hold office through several reelections? It blows my mind that the rates of approval for congressmen and their reelection rates can be on such exact opposite ends of the spectrum. There must be a huge disconnect in the system if 1 in 10 Americans approve of Congress yet members of Congress are elected back into office 9 out of 10 times. Veteran Representatives are almost impossible to displace from Congress. The financial and public advantages of holding office are able to overwhelm almost any possible competitors. As a country it would be beneficial to reduce the stagnancy of our Congress.  Especially in times of such low approval such as this. I doubt the American people would have any problem with this idea. It’s not like they could dislike Congress any more than they already do. And the Congressmen themselves have recognized the problem before and considered changing policy to combat congressional stagnation. For example, a failed amendment to impose term limits on senators and representatives received a majority of votes in the House of Representatives. I think an amendment such as this should be implemented. We already limit the president to 8 years in office, why is it that representatives can stay 5 times longer?

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/10/19/us-usa-florida-republican-idUSBRE99I00320131019