ThisIsCommonSense.org

Amazing. It’s happened before. But so infrequently that you want to grab the people involved by the shoulders and shout, “Hey! Good job! That’s what journalism is supposed to do: Report facts!”

I’m talking about an article in the Philadelphia Daily News that explains why it’s so hard to reform the Pennsylvania legislature: Incumbents in Pennsylvania rule the roost virtually unchallenged. The Daily News notes that only five seats out of 203 are now regarded as competitive. The culture of incumbency “breeds an isolated, insulated body eating millions of tax dollars each year, spending billions more without the scrutiny we give TV sit-​coms.” Add all the charges and convictions for drunken driving, bribery, spousal abuse and the like, and it’s not a very pretty picture.

How to shake up the status quo? Here’s where the Daily News loses a few of its laurels. The paper says that campaign money is what’s to blame for super-​high reelection rates. But Eric O’Keefe, President of Americans for Limited Terms, has studied the election, and he says, “it’s the low spenders who are most entrenched.”

O’Keefe agrees that party bosses can extort money when they have to, and throw it at the few contested races. But the question is, why are so many races uncontested to begin with? The real problem here is the power of incumbents to crimp competition and stave off reform, even without huge campaign coffers. To tackle that problem at the root, you need term limits.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Onion pungency. Ornamental fish. Cranberry breeding. How to de-​bone salmon.  Don’t get me wrong. I have nothing against food. I just don’t think the nation’s taxpayers should be spending millions of dollars on onion pungency studies and anti-​salmon-​bone technology.

Our career congressmen no doubt disagree. According to the Chronicle of Higher Education, over the past year our congressmen have splurged more than $1.7 billion on federal grants for just such academic projects, earmarked for the home districts of powerful legislators. In other words: pork. Something to serve up to a particular interest group in your district to help flavor the reelection bid.

Academic pork is, in fact, 60 percent fatter than it was just a year earlier. Can we be sure it’s pork? Well, let’s think about this. Nine of ten states that got the most grant money happen to have legislators heading up the relevant congressional committees. Meanwhile, nine of ten states at the bottom of the grant heap have no committee heads in their congressional delegations. This is the kind of pattern you expect to see when career politicians are putting personal careers ahead of the common good.

For example, New Hampshire wasn’t doing very well in the academic pork area until Congressman Judd Gregg became top dog of a subcommittee overseeing the Commerce and Justice Departments. Now Dartmouth is getting an $18 million earmark to study cybercrime and the University of New Hampshire is getting $14 million for a marine lab and a pier. Sounds fishy to me.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Do term limits help? I mean, do they really, really help our political leaders behave in a more responsible manner?

Well, my goodness they would have to, at least insofar as they show the door to the most corrupt careerists and make way for new people, more idealistic people. If you have some actual electoral competition in your democracy, that’s got to help some, don’t you think?

But is there anything more specific we can point to in the term-​limits track record? Well, yes, there’s plenty. For one thing, it turns out that the state legislatures that have been term-​limited for a while are now more willing to put a lid on out-​of-​control taxing and spending.

In an article for the Cato Institute, Michael New points out that term-​limited legislatures in California, Maine, Colorado and Oregon have each enacted tax cuts that have surprised long-​time observers. And the Montana statehouse, which has just seen a big influx of freshmen legislators, has passed a Tax and Expenditure Limitation bill that will be one of the toughest in the country if it becomes law. In Colorado, taxes were curbed by the same initiative process that brought term limits to that state, forcing the state government to hand back $2.3 billion to taxpayers over the space of just a few years. Colorado’s tax cut of 3.4 percent was the largest among the Rocky Mountain states, just as Maine’s 3.8 percent tax cut was the largest among New England states.

Term limits can’t bring tax limits all by themselves, of course. But gee, they sure do seem to help.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Shocker! This just in from Oklahoma … the career politicians there want to kill term limits!

Oh, I know … big surprise, right? But the anti-​social attitude of the career politicians still appalls me every time I hear tell of it. It seems career politicians are all in favor of electoral competition and suchlike, right up until the minute revitalized democracy threatens to loosen their hammerlock on power.

There is a new twist now in Oklahoma. You see, in virtually all the term-​limited states, citizens have capped service at six or eight years. And when the career politicians in those states realize that they can’t get away with getting rid of term limits altogether, they often talk instead about “strengthening” term limits, as they call it. Often what they mean is extending the limits, say from eight years to twelve years.

Well, anyway, the twist in Oklahoma is that the politicians there already have their twelve years, and that’s still too brief a candle for the careerists. Twelve years is still not enough time to find the bathroom, they say. Oklahoma’s term limits don’t even take effect until 2004, but the careerists want to kill the limits right now, before they have a chance to get off the ground.

The politicians have friends in a group called the Association of County Commissioners. Apparently the county commissioners in Oklahoma would rather deal with the same good old boys they’ve known all along than have to contend with fresh faces and fresh ideas. But I’m betting Oklahoma’s citizens will make clear that the term limits in their state are here to stay. And maybe even could use a little trimming.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Several years ago at a news conference, a reporter got confused and thought I’d advocated term limits for the media, you know, in addition to politicians. I told him we weren’t advocating such limits for the press, but nonetheless he ought not mention the idea above a whisper for fear it would take off.

Today, there are term limits on 19 state legislatures and 38 governors, but, of course, there are no limits for the media and nobody seriously advocating them. Yet, there are self-​limiters in the media. Wall Street Journal columnist Paul Gigot is leaving Washington of his own accord, and sounding a lot like a citizen legislator.

Gigot says about our capitol city, “It is horribly seductive … there is no more parochial place in America. Most of the city’s intrigues, which can seem so compelling, count for little in the end.… I started out trying to cover Washington the way a foreign correspondent would, trying to explain the bizarre native rituals to the rest of America. But the longer one stays here, the harder that is to do. Covering the city can lead to tunnel vision that focuses on political tactics and trivia over substance. I’ve sometimes found myself falling into that trap, a sign that some distance is in order.”

Gigot concludes, “The imperative of the political class is to accumulate even more power. Politicians don’t arrive here corrupt, or at least most don’t, but the attraction of power is corrupting to all but the hardiest souls.”

Paul Gigot, lessons learned, is headed to New York to become editor of the Journal ‘s editorial page. Good luck to him.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

What is left to say about Congressman Gary Condit? How about, “Enough already!”

But no, it’s never enough. Not when a congressman is holding his seat with the ferocious resolve of a professional politician locked in on a lifelong career at $150,000 smackers a year, not to mention the perks and a gold-​plated pension.

No, this guy isn’t planning to give up his job, his position, his power no matter what. Judging by his obtuse stonewalling on TV, Condit is saying, “Go ahead: Drag me, my family and the entire country through this sordid tale: I can stand neck-​deep in open sewage longer than you can.”

Perhaps that’s the new Washington standard. Now, to add insult to injury, the Condit camp is saying that the congressman never denied the affair with Chandra Levy, you know, the one he won’t confirm. You see, it was his taxpayer-​funded staff who told reporters there was no relationship. Mr. Condit, of course, had no idea what his very own staff was telling the media. You just can’t get good help these days.

Condit’s fallen so far that even fellow Democrats in Congress are no longer defending him. In fact, there is talk of removing him from the House Intelligence Committee. (No doubt a very small committee to begin with.) But Condit’s attorney, Abbe Lowell, explains why this scandal just makes Condit an even more effective congressman. Lowell tells us, “He’s probably the only person on the Intelligence Committee who can’t be blackmailed anymore.”

Now there’s a dandy slogan for Mr. Condit’s reelection campaign.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.