Term Limits: Democracy Frustrated

In my last post I introduced a proposal for redistricting to make state legislative and congressional races more competitive and representative. Dissatisfaction with the electoral process has already spawned another movement to do so: term limits. Proponents envisioned term limits as a way to improve citizen input and participation and inject fresh blood into politics. Instead, term limits have failed to live up to the hopes of their backers and have made many problems worse. This experiment has not proved to be a hoped-for panacea as was originally advertised and should be discarded.

Enthusiasm for term limits ran high from 1990 to 1996. California, Colorado and Oklahoma got the ball rolling in 1990. Seventeen more states joined the party by 1996. Since then, only Nebraska in 2000 has been added to the list. No new states have adopted them since 2000, and indeed six states have since revoked legislative term limits, leaving 15 states with them still in place. There were calls for term limits to be imposed on the U. S. Congress too, and it was included as a plank in the successful Republican "Contract For America" congressional platform in 1994. After winning the majority in Congress in the election of that year, however, the newly elected representatives and senators seemed to lose interest. It would take an amendment to the United States Constitution to accomplish this, and that idea never got of the ground.

I visited the Cato Institute website on the issue. They are a strong advocate of term limits. It is interesting that their advocacy piece, still prominently displayed, was written by Doug Bandow in 1995 in an effort to get the new Republican congress to honor its campaign pledge. Bandow presented the case for term limits at the height of their popularity and mentioned seven main reasons. They were: 1) elect citizen legislatures, 2) elect members who were close to the private sector with "practical experience in the real world," 3) diversity, 4) reduce the power of incumbency, 5) counteract a "culture of ruling," 6) provide an "antidote to professionalization" and 7) improve competitiveness. These seven reasons really boil down to only two. Reasons 1, 2, 3, 5 and 6 are different ways of stating the same purpose: to get rid of professional politicians and replace them with "regular folks." Reasons 4 and 7 are the other purpose, to reduce the power of incumbency.

How this has actually worked out is encapsulated in a survey conducted by the National Conference of State Legislatures answered mainly by legislative staffers. Many staffers stay on as the composition of the legislature changes around them. You can find the summary and raw data at http://www.ncsl.org/programs/legismgt/ABOUT/termlimit.htm. Their predominant view is that the change has done a lot more harm than good. Only 13% report greater public access to the legislature. 51% report there has been no change in diversity and only 22% say it has improved. 74% believe their legislature is less efficient than before. 68% feel that legislative committees are less effective. More than twice as many think their legislature is now more likely to support pork barrel projects than think such projects have been reduced. 63% say the executive branch has gained power, 66% feel legislative staff now exert more influence and 75% believe the influence of lobbyists has grown. This reads like a Pandora's box of negative results.

Telling comments include such contributions as these: "Originally, I believed that fresh blood would be good; however experience, understanding of the process and historical knowledge are lost. The same debates occur year after year." "Too many legislators feel hard-pressed to make an immediate impact without full knowledge of the implications of their decisions." Why is this happening? One respondent perhaps explains it best, observing that term limits give

"... more power to the information providers - the executive branch, legislative
staff, and lobbyists. In terms of government experience and institutional memory,
legislators will now be disadvantaged, forever. In terms of knowing how to
get things done, legislators will now be disadvantaged, forever. In a
world that becomes more complex every year, the majority of people who have
foisted this term limit scheme onto our democracy have now mandated that
their representatives will always be rookies or just a few years beyond being
rookies. They have proclaimed that they don't want the benefits that come
from wisdom through experience."

Another effect I have observed in California is what I call the revolving door. Telling politicians they cannot run for a particular office does not mean they won't run for some office. Legislators about to be termed out change from the Assembly to the Senate or vice verse. They run for county supervisor, the Board of Equalization, mayor, supervisor of a water district, statewide office, or what have you. Just about the time they learn a job and the people they are working with well enough to be competent and accomplish something they are termed out and begin anew as a rookie in a different post. The state legislature hasn't passed a budget on time since the limits were enacted. And that budget, which always used to balance whether Democrats or Republicans held sway, has been in deficit the majority of years since this "reform."

The final nail in the coffin of this well-intentioned but boondoggle of an idea is that it is fundamentally undemocratic. By setting up a rule that prevents the voters from electing the person of their choice to a post, it guarantees that someone who enjoys their confidence less will fill it. If the person wishes to remain in public service and has the support of the people to do so s/he will have to start from scratch in a job with which he or she is less familiar. It is hard to see how the public interest is served by such regulation, and the legislative survey and experience indicates that it most certainly is not.

Though some still call for the spread of the term limit movement, it is hardly surprising given these results that no new states have joined since 2000 and that six have rescinded their former term limits. No, term limits provide no useful answer for us. They represent the frustration of an electorate that saw little chance to effect change when they wanted to. The redistricting plan described in my last post and the campaign finance reform I will discuss in my next will go much farther to effecting the necessary remedies.

Note: Due to the Christmas holidays I will be out town for the next few days. I'll resume my next post after that. Until then, I invite you in this most blessed season to pray with me for peace and goodwill on earth.