Term Limits Are Too Short

Citizens throughout the country are discovering what discerning Californians have learned the hard way: Legislative term limits do not result in a more productive legislature of citizen lawmakers who are free from the influence of fat-cat special interests.

The magazine State Legislatures reported in its April edition that Wyoming is seeking to become the sixth state to repeal or nullify its term-limits law. A group of lawmakers and citizens is challenging the constitutionality of the law in the courts, and the state attorney general says the group may have a strong case. However, the repeals have been in states where limits were adopted by the Legislature. In California, the voters would have to approve a constitutional amendment, a far more difficult task.

The magazine also reported the preliminary results of a national survey of 3,500 lawmakers on the effect of term limits, which swept the country after California voters passed the nation’s strictest limits in 1990. The study showed that term-limited lawmakers knew less about the issues coming before their committees than their longer-serving colleagues, that they specialized less on issues and that they cared less about the clarity and precision of legislation. This is not news in Sacramento.

One result is that governors -- and, it’s disturbing to note, lobbyists -- enjoy correspondingly greater power, according to the survey conducted by the Council of State Governments and the National Conference on State Legislatures.

California holds its Assembly members to three two-year terms and senators to two four-year terms. Lawmakers cannot run again once they are termed out in both houses, although that doesn’t stop them from running for governor, mayor or Congress, for instance.

The perception in California is that voters still support limits even as evidence mounts that they are not fulfilling the promises of promoters. The electorate rejected an attempt two years ago to liberalize limits by allowing a termed-out lawmaker to collect signatures from voters for the opportunity to run again. A more honest and straightforward extension might fare better.

Allowing 12 years in each house would make the Legislature stronger and more effective without enabling the entrenched leadership that voters in 1990 viewed as arrogant and possibly corrupt. Term limits have not raised public confidence in the Legislature, which rated worse in the polls last year than ousted Gov. Gray Davis.

In California, term limits have made the scramble for campaign funds from special interests more constant and unabashed than ever, leaving lawmakers even less responsive to the people they are supposed to serve. Voters may not be ready to repeal limits, but they would be better served by lawmakers who were in office long enough to learn the job.