Plainly time to rethink term limits
Pub Date: 5/1/2007
One of the watershed events of Montana politics in the last two decades is term limits. It was a bad idea when it was enacted in 1992 and is still a bad idea today.
In essence, State Senators, who serve four-year terms, are limited to two terms. State Representatives are limited to four two-year terms. The Governor and Lieutenant Governor, Attorney General, Secretary of State, State Auditor and Superintendent of Public Instruction are limited to two four-year terms.
We objected to term limits back when they were first proposed because, we said at the time, we already have term limit powers: its called "an election." The voters had the power to limit or extend any elected official's term.
Further, why should voters be deprived of a choice to return to office an exceptionally gifted, hard working, effective representative? That is unfairly, unnecessarily limiting voters' rights and choices, we argued.
As small business owners and employers, we also argued against the notion that the public "hire" their representatives at the ballot box, then tell them, "You will, however, be dismissed in x-number of years, regardless of the kind of job you do."
Is this how we would staff our businesses? What incentive would an employee have to work hard and do a good job if they knew they were ultimately soon going to be fired anyway? What incentive would there be to act honestly or to get along with their fellow workers or to be a productive part of the team?
Legislating and governing is a complex task. So why, just when they have gained the experience necessary to do their jobs well, do we lay our "employee" representatives off?
That would be a stupid way to run a business and It's a stupid way to run a government.
As a result of our shortsightedness, we now have a Legislature with little institutional memory, prone to making mistakes that have been made before, and conducting rancorous debates over issues that have been argued and decided a long while ago.
We also have attained new levels of acrimony and partisanship. After all, It's pretty easy to burn all your bridges, tell your colleagues to go to hell, when you know darned well you're not coming back and won't have to work with that S.O.B. ever again.
Further, legislators can develop exactly the same low regard for the constituents who sent them there in the first place. If not expecting to face a re-election campaign, why worry or care about what the folks back home think, want or need?
We're reasonably certain a substantial majority of Montanans approve of the way Attorney General Mike McGrath has conducted himself and the business of his office, for example. He seems to be a highly competent and effective official who is downright likable, besides.
As voters, we should be able to choose whether to return him to office, but that choice that citizen power has been surrendered.
We're also reasonably certain, had the voters been given a choice, they would have opted to return popular former Governor Marc Racicot to office. Neither Racicot nor the voters, however, had any say in the matter.
We would favor the elimination of all term limits in order to once again leave those important decisions entirely up to the voters. Nevertheless, there is still much "popular" support for the misguided notion so, at the least, term limits ought to be extended or expanded.
But the Legislature cannot do this because it requires a Constitutional Amendment. Besides, elected officials advocating such a change will appear to be merely self-serving the perception that got us in this mess in the first place.
No, the voters will have to decide this issues and It's time they weighed in again.
Preferably, one of our great many activist organizations "for improved government" would mount a citizen initiative to get the question on the ballot. Then we would all have to campaign our tails off to get it passed.
Less desirable but perhaps equally doable the Legislature could again put a constitutional referendum on the ballot.
A long-time friend, whose political savvy I respect, told me the greatest mistake he ever made at the ballot box was his 1992 vote for term limits. Let's hope other voters can be as contemplative in concluding and conscientious in admitting such a past vote was a mistake.
At any rate, it is time for the citizens of Montana to reconsider what we've done, to consider the harm and damage we've inflicted upon ourselves.
Then let's reverse course or at least modify our current term limits to give voters more choice and to allow more experience to accumulate in our elected officials.
If they prove unworthy, we could exercise our power to limit their terms in the voting booth any time a majority chooses.
Source: The Montana Tavern Times, May. 2007, published monthly by Continental Communications, 125 W. Granite St., Suite 102, Butte, MT 59701.