What is going on down in Florida? It seems the election is never over: the results are ignored while the campaign just goes on and on.
Never mind the presidential race! I’m talking about term limits in Tampa, Florida and arrogance by Tampa politicians that you just don’t find every day, not even in Washington, D.C.
Voters in Tampa have been pretty clear about wanting term limits some observers think that’s why voters passed term limits to begin with. But the city council thought otherwise. When they placed a repeal of term limits on the ballot, many of the city council members no doubt were thinking: “The voters love me. They can’t live without me.”
But this past November the voters reiterated their preference when they overwhelmingly defeated the repeal. Now the anti-term limits group wants to put the question back to the voters in a special election that will cost taxpayers lots of money and promise a much smaller turnout of voters.
But, finally, some sanity: Council Member Gwen Miller, who had voted to put it on the ballot once, said, “The people have spoken. If they felt like they wanted to end term limits, they would have said so. We don’t need to keep putting it on and on again.”
Voters love term limits because they want new people and new ideas in government. That keeps our government closer to all of us. Politicians, well, they just don’t get it. Or maybe they do, but just don’t like it.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.