One of five items facing voters on Nov. 6 is extending legislative term limits from eight years to 12 years. Many legislators have said they don’t support term limits at all, but doing away with the cut-off is considered too unpopular an idea for voters to pass it.
Rep. Leila Percy, D-Phippsburg, said she fully supports extending term limits: “Term limits have created an enormous dependency on the executive branch.” Others have complained that term limits allow veteran lobbyists to become too influential with freshmen legislators. As House chairman of the Marine Resources Committee, Percy has seen inexperience from rapid turnover take its toll. “When you only have four terms, it’s so short that if that person doesn’t have a marine background, it’s a very steep learning curve,” she said.
Even so, she praised the thoughtfulness of her current committee members.
Term limits seem to appeal to the “throw the bums out” school of thought, where longer-serving politicians are seen as more likely to be too powerful — and possibly corrupt.
The current four-term limit for representatives and senators was enacted in 1993 and took effect three years later. It was a move based on experience with one person, House Speaker John Martin of Eagle Lake, a Democrat whom many people thought had become much too powerful.
Limiting terms of elective office was a way to oust Martin. It worked, at first. But term limits don’t prohibit seeking a different office, so Martin returned as a senator. He is now in his 21st term in the Legislature, facing a senate term limit next year.
“It’s important to have turnover, and it’s difficult without term limits,” said Robin Alden, former Department of Marine Resources commissioner.
But legislators, particularly new ones, often don’t know much about the issues they are voting on. When it comes to fisheries, “it’s really an esoteric area — with large impacts on individual livelihoods,” said Alden, who is now executive director of Penobscot East Resource Center.
Ken Palmer, former chairman of the University of Maine political science department, co-authored a 2005 book evaluating Maine’s term limits, the first such law in the country at the state level.
Palmer concluded term limits “gum up the works” as inexperienced legislators consider bills already rejected by previous legislatures. He also pointed out that sitting legislators are in a tough position to criticize term limits, since it sounds self-serving — and perhaps it is.
There are 35 members of the Senate, and 151 members of the House, all elected for two-year terms. The Senate has 18 Democrats and 17 Republicans. The House contains 87 Democrats, 57 Republicans and two independents.
Perhaps the strongest argument for term limits is that no one is irreplaceable. There is a need for new faces, fresh thinking. And term limits assure change, although not necessarily for the better.
And perhaps the strongest argument against term limits is that it forces out experienced, capable legislators in an arbitrary way. After all, voters already have the ability to limit a term: just vote the person out of office on Election Day.