Term limits are limiting Maine's government

The League of Women Voters supports a YES vote on Question 5 this fall. We believe that extending term limits for state legislators from four to six terms is a needed, moderate, and fair reform that will address some of the serious adverse effects of term limits. Maine needs good government. Maine needs this reform.
Maine became the test tube for term limits in 1996, as the first state in the U.S. where limits took effect on state legislators.
Since then, political scientists and the National Conference of State Legislatures have put Maine under the microscope in a remarkable multi-year, multi-state study issued in 2005. Its findings should concern anyone committed to good government and fair representation.

The NCSL report found that:

* Term Limits made our Legislature less effective.

* Term Limits shift power to bureaucrats we don't know and lobbyists we don't elect.

* Term Limits made Maine's Legislature less diverse and less representative of the people of Maine.

* Term Limits empower the executive and cut the Legislature's ability to craft sound policy in complex times.

We think extending the learning curve - by extending term limits - allows government to gain skill by experience and apply experience to common sense in making laws, not to racing short-term limits.

The NCSL found that since term-limited legislators want to work quickly on their own priority issues, they must focus on the short-term topics, rather than long-term complex issues. But today Maine faces more challenging, long-term, difficult dilemmas than ever. We need the best, most capable Legislature we can elect to do that job, and do it right, especially with an eye to the long term.

Maine's most representative body - the House of Representatives - is seriously disempowered by term limits. Many former members simply run for the state Senate, taking experience with them. Power migrates with knowledge, too, making the Senate the most experienced processing and lawmaking chamber. Term limits have destabilized the once-equal balance between policy making bicameral bodies, our state House and Senate. What will this mean in the long run?

Oddly, while term limits dilute legislative performance, at the same time they increase legislative workload. The NCSL study found that the number of bills increased, not decreased, because fewer members remembered which old ideas had been tried before and failed. Newer members recycled old ideas that lacked insight or past support. Without knowledge of the past, or experience in policy, legislators raised the same ideas again and again. Term limits prove that little is new except that which has been forgotten.

Professional lobbyists - who no one elects, and who are not term limited at all - become the historical memory of the lawmaking body. The NCSL found committee chairs who had never run a meeting or worked in the field their committee oversees.

The NCSL found term limits made the Legislature less diverse, not more so. Fewer women serve in the Legislature, for example, than before term limits and fewer young people. Professionals from the private sector tend to stay less.

Before term limits, Maine had one of the highest natural legislative turnover rates in the country. Enough experienced legislators remained to tutor the newcomers, and newcomers in turn handed on their knowledge.

For ten years, Maine term limits has turned the citizens' Legislature on its head, making it more difficult, not less, to keep thoughtful public servants and more difficult, not less, to focus on long-term solutions.

We feel the law of unintended consequences has, in some ways, threatened to overwhelm lawmaking itself. With over ten years of experience under term limits, we see that the unintended consequences demand serious attention and remedy. The time has come to reflect on what has worked and what hasn't.

Maine is lucky to have a true citizen's Legislature. We want to keep it that way. We need the best public servants and the best experience they can share. And we, at the ballot box, can be the best judge of who is working and who is not.

We believe that extending the maximum number of terms from 4 to 6 - as is the standard in many other citizens legislature states - is a modest, sensible, and fair reform that respects the original intentions of the law, that learns from experience, and that helps the citizens of Maine keep the good government they deserve.

To read the detailed National Conference of State Legislature's report about Maine term limits, see: www.lwvme.org. Prof. Rich Powell's study of Maine term limits can be found at: www.ncsl.org/jptl/CaseStudies/CaseContacts.htm