Legislators, anxious to further weaken their own term limits, placed Issue 2 on the Arkansas ballot.
The current limit is already a loiteringly long 16 years — thanks to a dishonestly worded, legislatively referred 2014 ballot amendment, which weakened the voter-initiated limits.*
Voters came back in 2018 to restore the original six-year House and eight-year Senate limits, placing a measure on the ballot that from various public reports received nearly 80 percent of the vote. But an Arkansas supreme court decision forbade counting those votes.
Still, politicians are back with another term limits attack. Issue 2 lowers the 16-year limit to 12 years. Huh, lowers? Stay with me. Issue 2 grandfathers everyone elected this year or before. Current office holders get the full 16 years — plus no lifetime limit (that gets nixed), allowing politicians to return for another 12 years after a short break.
No wonder the citizens’ group Arkansas Term Limits opposes Issue 2, calling it “The Lifetime Politician Amendment.”
Not unrelated, there is also Issue 3. Arkansas legislators have repeatedly attacked term limits and the only way for citizens to get a real term-limit on the ballot: the citizen petition process.
“Advocates acknowledged the amendment, [Issue 3], would make it harder to qualify proposals for the ballot,” the Arkansas Times’ Max Brantley explained, “but generally saw that as a good thing.”
One poison-pill provision would slice six months from the petition process, moving the deadline from warm, sunny July to cold, dark January — and forcing campaigns to flood Christmas shopping with petitioners trying to gather signatures.
Call it “The Ruin Christmas Amendment.”
Putting 2 and 3 together: The Lifetime Politicians Ruin Christmas Amendments.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
* Want to holler at that politician author who hoodwinked voters? Go to a federal prison … where Senator Woods relocated after convictionson political corruption.
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3 replies on “Lifetime Politicians Ruin Christmas”
There wouldn’t be lifetime politicians if Americans had the will to throw them out — at the ballot box. We can impose term limits whenever we wish — if we are willing to vote out incumbents of both parties.
I would argue that we also need to be willing to pass over the relatives of those who have served, for at least a generation. No sons or daughters or spouses should ‘inherit’ an elective office. Dynasties are bad for America, as the Cuomos, Kennedys and Bushes illustrate.
We have had lifetime politicians since the Constitution was ratified. Case in point: John Quincy Adams. After serving in numerous positions under different presidents, he was elected to the presidency. After being defeated for reelection, he ran for a seat in the House from Massachusetts and served in the US House until the day he died.
Aren’t these republican amendments?
Good question. Both Issue 2 and Issue 3 won overwhelming majorities in both houses of the Legislature and among reps of both parties. These attacks on the people are, sadly, thoroughly bipartisan.