Category: term limits

Legislators Turned Lobbyists Turned Altruists

Post author By Redactor
Post date December 3, 2019
No Comments on Legislators Turned Lobbyists Turned Altruists

Legislative bosses, the state’s most powerful special interests and a fake grassroots organization teamed up a month ago to figure out how best to attack Michigan’s popular term limits law.

Now comes a lawsuit demanding that a federal court overturn these 27-year-old voter-enacted limits.

“I’m just sitting here watching five former legislators, who are now lobbyists, sitting in the conference [room] of another lobbyist in Lansing talking about how the courts should rescue them from the voters,” Patrick Anderson, author of the 1992 term limits law, told MIRS.*

Self-serving? Not at ALL. “When you take the most experienced people out of government,” asserted John Bursch, the legislator-lobbyists’ attorney, “it shifts the balance of power to career bureaucrats and to lobbyists.”

So, clearly, these kind, meek, caring lobbyists are altruistically rejecting more power and influence for themselves and, instead, working selflessly for the greater good. No wonder everyone loves lobbyists.

In pursuing the legal approach, Bursch did acknowledge, “We think it would be very difficult to put anything on the ballot that would be successful.”

Their legal rationale is as implausible as their putative public-spiritedness. The lawsuit contends that term limits deny legislators the opportunity to gain law-making competence while also listing all the wonderful legislation these legislators-turned-lobbyists once passed … when working under term limits.

It’s not a legal argument, either way, but which is it?

“I’m having trouble,” offered Rina Baker with Don’t Touch Term Limits, “remembering a single moment when I wished any of the plaintiffs were still in office.”

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

* Unfortunately, this capitol insider publication is behind a paywall, so no link is available.

from photo by Beth LeBlanc/The Detroit News

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Term Limits Apply to Socialists,Too

Post author By Redactor
Post date November 13, 2019
No Comments on Term Limits Apply to Socialists,Too

Bolivia, term limits, democracy, elections,

We don’t see a lot of pro-term-limits writing in our major, “corporate” media outlets — but a New York magazine account of the ouster of Bolivian President Evo Morales is a welcome exception.

“The disgraceful and chaotic manner in which the once-beloved Morales is leaving office is an object lesson in why presidential term limits are important,” writes Jonah Schepp. “Running a country for more than a decade has a tendency to make people more susceptible to authoritarian impulses, whether or not they started their careers as dictators.”

The Atlantic also acknowledges term limits’ vital role. “Evo Morales Finally Went Too Far for Bolivia,” the “too far” being the “authoritarian powers” claimed “in the name of the popular will.” Yascha Mounk explains how Morales’ once-touted support for presidential term limits evaporated in 2016, when he placed before voters a binding referendum to allow him to stay in office indefinitely. Bolivians voted No, only to witness their supreme court set aside term limits using the bizarre rationale “that limits on the length of his tenure in office would violate Morales’s human rights.”

After irregularities in the October 20 presidential vote, Bolivians took to the streets. Morales resigned on Sunday.

“For a socialist president who was until recently hailed as the great success story of the Latin American left,” New York’s Schepp explains, “this unseemly end serves as a cautionary tale of what happens when world leaders remain in office for too long.”

On a 2015 trip, President Obama remonstrated African leaders for their attempts to overturn popular term limits. “I’ll be honest with you,” he said before the African Union, “I’m looking forward to life after being president.”

Mr. Morales, Bolivia’s now-former president, is not so fortunate. Yesterday, he fled the country.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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term limits

Politicians Not Voters

“Breakthrough coalition working on expanding term limits,” hollers the Lansing City Post headline.

“Michigan’s legislative leaders,” the capital-based paper informs, “are working on a term limits expansion deal for state lawmakers .… The conceptual plan, which won’t be finalized until December, would be that lawmakers could serve a combined 20 years in both the House and Senate before they would be broomed from office.”

Yes, you heard that correctly: the legislative bosses want a new term limits law allowing politicians to serve 20 years in a single seat.

Twenty years is no term-limit. It’s a cushy retirement plan.

In unsurprising bipartisanship, Michigan’s NPR affiliate reports that, “Senate Democratic Leader Jim Ananich (D‑Flint) says lawmakers from his party could get on board.” The Democrat added, “[W]e’re not big supporters of term limits in the first place.”

The other big news is that the scheming is no longer confined to politicians and their cronies over at the Michigan Chamber of Commerce — the business lobby that for three decades has curried favor with lawmakers by conspiring to undo the state’s voter-enacted term limits. Now, also plotting behind closed doors with Republican Senate Majority Leader Mike Shirkey and Republican House Speaker Lee Chatfield is the progressive, union-funded Voters Not Politicians group.

“He and the speaker have found a willing partner in VNP,” a spokesperson for Shirkey acknowledged.

Unlike the unpopular Chamber and politicians, Voters Not Politicians sports a shred of grassroots credibility, having led a successful 2018 ballot initiative on redistricting.

But that shred will last only until Michiganders find out that Voters Not Politicians has sadly morphed into Politicians Not Voters.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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term limits

They’re Called Term Limits

Post author By Redactor
Post date July 22, 2019
2 Comments on They’re Called Term Limits

Looking for an exemplar of condescending witlessness? Take Steve Benen, producer of MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow Show. Please!

Last week, I praised Democratic presidential candidate Tom Steyer for endorsing term limits, while Benen panned him at The Maddow Blog, calling term limits a “gimmick.”

So, when Aristotle argued for mandatory rotation in office, that was just a stunt?

“I imagine most term-limit proponents mean well,” concedes the snooty Benen, about congressional term limits’ whopping 82 percent public support. But, he goes on, “whether they appreciate the details or not, forcing experienced policymakers out of office, even if their constituents want to re-elect them, has an unintended consequence: inexperienced officials inevitably find themselves more dependent on outside groups and lobbyists …”

Are we supposed to believe that lobbyists and special interests are being kept at bay by Congress’s current careerists?

Supposedly appealing to an “underlying principle,” Benen then maintains that “there’s simply no reason for the federal government to impose arbitrary constraints on voters’ ability to choose their own members of Congress.”

Oh, that’s really rich — as if “the federal government” is dictatorially cramming term limitation down the throats of poor politician-adoring voters.

Benen notes that Steyer is “not the only Democratic candidate endorsing term limits,” acknowledging that Beto O’Rourke has also proposed the reform. Actually, there are eight more Democratic presidential candidates who have voiced support.*

Mr. Benen’s sophistication boils down to the tired slogan: “We already have term limits; they’re called elections.”

That may fly for the insiders at MSNBC and in Congress, but the vote the American people most want to see is on a constitutional amendment for congressional term limits.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

* Those candidates are: New Jersey Senator Cory Booker, former HUD Secretary Julian Castro, Maryland Congressman John Delaney, New York City Mayor Bill DiBlasio, New York Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, former Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper, Massachusetts Congressman Seth Moulton, and entrepreneur Andrew Yang.

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initiative, referendum, and recall political challengers term limits

A Different Conversation

billionaire, Tom Steyer, candidate, president, election, campaign,

“Here’s the difference between me and the other candidates,” says billionaire investor-turned-presidential aspirant Tom Steyer. “I don’t think we can fix our democracy from the inside. I don’t believe Washington politicians and big corporations will let that happen.”

Of course, if this Democrat becomes president of these United States, that’s hardly the outside.

“For me,” Steyer continues, “this comes down to whether you trust the politicians or the people.”

Well, I certainly trust the people a whole lot more than I trust the politicians.*

“If you say you trust the people, are you willing to stand up to the insiders and the big corporations and give the people the tools they need to fix our democracy?” Steyer asks.

Which tools? “A national referendum, term limits, eliminating corporate money in politics, making it easy to vote.”

The toolkit’s a mixed bag.

Eliminating corporate money means repealing part of the First Amendment, and silencing non-profit corporations such as U.S. Term Limits, MoveOn.org, the NRA, Planned Parenthood, National Right to Life, etc., etc.

Mr. Steyer also worries that, without reform, “We won’t be able to … pass any of the great plans proposed by the Democratic candidates running for president.”

We should be so lucky.

Still, here is another Democratic presidential candidate endorsing congressional term limits. And we do need a direct democratic check on Washington, the ability for citizens to initiate reforms such as term limits and take unpopular legislation to a referendum.

I’m not sanguine that Steyer will get the policy details right, but as fellow Democratic candidate Sen. Kamala Harris is fond of saying, “Let’s have that conversation.”

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

* Constitutional protections for our basic rights, as in The Bill of Rights, mean we do not have to trust government, directly democratic or representative.

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Popular tax policy term limits

Terms for Taxes

Years ago, I dubbed Tim Eyman “America’s #1 freedom fighter,” and how does he repay me? Washington State’s anti-tax crusading initiative guru has gone and stolen my bread-and-butter issue, term limits … and married it up with another one of his tax initiatives.

He’s calling Initiative 1648: Term Limits on Taxes.

“This measure would require state tax increases to expire after one year unless approved by a majority vote of the people,” informs the official ballot title, “and immediately terminate any tax increases imposed in 2019 without such approval.”

Did someone say “tax increases”?

“They went absolutely bonkers this legislative session,” Eyman told radio host Lars Larson recently. “There were 11 tax increases; they totaled over $27 billion over the next ten years. And there’s just no checks and balances.”

Speaking with Dori Monson of KIRO Radio, he noted that “all of them were passed without a vote of the people. This initiative says whenever they raise taxes without a vote of the people, we’re going to put it on a strict time limit.”

But with a July 5th deadline, supporters have less than two weeks left to gather the 320,000 voter signatures required on the petition.

It is terrible that Evergreen State voters can’t term-limit their state legislators directly. But in 1998, the state supreme court struck down a term limits initiative passed by voters, ruling that a constitutional amendment was required — something only legislators can propose.

Now, thanks to Mr. Eyman, at least voters can slap term limits on their legislators’ tax increases.

Still, he stole the idea from me.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.