Term limits: protecting us from our own poor choices

Discussion about rolling back legislative term limits in Ohio is starting to percolate among leaders from both side of the partisan aisle. It's about damn time, since term limits reflect a profoundly undemocratic reflex among the American voting public.

An article in Sunday's Columbus Dispatch reported that a new Ohio Constitutional Modernization Commission will begin discussing potential changes to the state constitution in late February. Many critics of term limits hope the issue will be at the top of the commission's agenda.

In a stunning admission of their own inability to make responsible choices at the ballot box, an overwhelming 68 percent of Ohio voters approved term limits by referendum in 1992, with the first legislators limited out of office in 2000.

Here's 10 reasons why legislative term limits are perversely anti-democratic, shortsighted and just plain stupid. Many of these reasons were covered in the Dispatch story…

1. The top reason: Because even without term limits, Ohioans already have the ability to limit a state lawmaker's term; they can vote for someone else.

2. Term limits restrict voters' choices at the polls. Everybody's always grousing about the lousy choices they have at election time, yet they want to reduce the pool of potential candidates by denying ballot access to the most experienced politicians? Really?

3. Just like with any other endeavor in life, a legislator has an advantage at doing his or her job if he or she has more, rather than less, experience and knowledge about the legislative process and public policy. That's not to say that all experienced lawmakers use their skills and knowledge to positive effect, but all else being the same, who's better equipped to do the job? Someone with more knowledge and experience, or someone with less?

4. History is full of examples of lawmakers who invested many years, even several decades, into their legislative careers, and who became more effective leaders as they got older. Tip O'Neill, Oakley Collins, Vern Riffe, Barry Goldwater … You can find multiple examples at the state and national levels, on both side of the partisan aisle. Yet, while years of experience, and the increased knowledge and awareness that come with it, can improve an ineffective rookie legislator, they're not likely to make him or her any worse.

5. Inexperienced lawmakers are ripe for the plucking by special-interest lobbyists or bureaucrats in government agencies. If you're a half-empty vessel when it comes to public policy or legislative knowledge, that vacuum is ready to be filled by the nearest expert, and lamentably these days, the most knowledgeable people wandering the Statehouse corridors are people with vested interests that don't necessarily coincide with those of the public. Put yourself in the shoes of a lobbyist. If you wanted to persuade a legislator to vote your way, would you prefer to deal with an inexperienced, impressionable senator or House member, or one who's been around the block, knows all the tricks, and has enough accumulated power to vote independently? Of course, campaign contributions can be a corrupting influence, but that's the case whether the legislative recipient is new or old in the lawmaking business.

6. I'd challenge term-limit supporters to show how today's Ohio Legislature, a dozen years after term limits kicked in, is any more effective or responsive than it was prior to term limits.

7. The "citizen legislators" of today – as characterized by populist supporters of term limits – don't reflect the mainstream of Ohio. Rather, they reflect the extremely partisan views of the true believers who vote in party primaries. Several years of seasoning in Columbus tend to broaden the perspectives of legislators. Again, I'd argue that all else being the same, a broad perspective is better than a narrow one, especially where public policy and governing is involved.

8. If you serve in a legislative body for a long time, you're more likely to develop and cultivate relationships and friendships across the aisle. Unless you truly believe that the hyper-partisanship is superior to bipartisanship when it comes to the national interest, then you should be troubled about how term limits work against cooperative government. (Granted, getting rid of term limits wouldn't be a panacea for divided government, as our current non-term-limited national Congress shows all too well. For good government's sake, primary election and redistricting reform should also be undertaken.)

9. Term limits only make sense in a nation or state whose residents are literally too dumb to make responsible choices in the voting booth. When citizens vote for term limits, they're basically saying, "Yes, please save me from myself. I'm too ignorant or stupid to vote a long-time senator or House member out of office, unless I'm forced to do so by term limits."

10. As detailed in Sunday's Dispatch article, term limits in Ohio have led to a situation where many of our senators and House members got appointed, rather than elected, to their current or original terms. Before their terms were limited, their predecessors moved on to other offices or endeavors, leaving seats that had to be filled by appointment. So instead of having a wide-open choice in the voting booth, Ohio voters – thanks to term limits – often never even get any sort of choice about who's representing them.

The bottom line? Eliminate term limits in Ohio, and give us a chance to make our own choices about who should represent us.