It was 19 years, and it was a letter from Thomas Jefferson to James Madison.
The TL; DR of it is, Jefferson used the best actuarial data he had (which we now know is flawed, but his point still remains) and determined that every 19 years, the voting electorate would be made up of voters fewer than 50% of which would have been old enough to vote for the laws in effect. In other words, more than half of voters (aka adults) would be subject to laws they would not have been old enough to vote for at the time they were passed.
His reasoning therefore was to basically “redo” government every 19 years, so that at no point could anyone be subject to a law they didn’t have a say in voting for.
The founding fathers wanted it to be rewritten every 15 years or so.
Where can I find the evidence for this? I want to read more about it.
It was 19 years, and it was a letter from Thomas Jefferson to James Madison.
The TL; DR of it is, Jefferson used the best actuarial data he had (which we now know is flawed, but his point still remains) and determined that every 19 years, the voting electorate would be made up of voters fewer than 50% of which would have been old enough to vote for the laws in effect. In other words, more than half of voters (aka adults) would be subject to laws they would not have been old enough to vote for at the time they were passed.
His reasoning therefore was to basically “redo” government every 19 years, so that at no point could anyone be subject to a law they didn’t have a say in voting for.
Thank you!!
I believe it was discussed in the Federalist papers too