Tag: term limits

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Common Sense

Twelve Isn’t Enough?

If you know anything about term limits and political lifers, you know which one hates the other: Your typical politico disdains and reviles your typical term limit.

But it’s not just the typical term limit that politicians hate. It’s all term limits. In states with six-​year or eight-​year term limits, politicians often pretend to support the limits, saying they just want to tweak them … to get just a little more time.

But where state legislators do have more time, they don’t want to accept term limits either.

Take Nevada, where they are limited to a generous twelve-​year stretch.

In Nevada, initiatives to amend the state constitution must be approved twice. Voters there passed twelve-​year term limits on many officials, including lawmakers, in 1994 and again 1996. The amendment explicitly included the incumbents’ previous service. The law was retroactive. But the attorney general at the time opined that the law wasn’t retroactive, and incumbents got away with pretending it wasn’t.

That scam was bad enough. But now it’s 2008. And Nevada lawmakers and other incumbents are saying they should be allowed to run for re-​election even if they’ve been in power for twelve straight years since 1996.

They’ve got some trumped-​up technical excuse. But the bottom line is very familiar. They’re in power. They want to stay there. And to heck with the law … and the voters.

Sad, but true.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Common Sense

Edmondson v. Term Limits

Oklahoma State Senator Randy Brogdon is disappointed by the most recent objectionable conduct of his state’s attorney general.

The AG, Drew Edmondson, publicly opposes a bill to term-​limit the offices of state officials, including his. The proposal would impose a twelve-​year maximum. Mild as far as term limits go, but it still triggers all the alarm bells if you are part of a family dynasty of career politicians.

Senator Brogdon, a supporter of the bill, notes that Attorney General Edmondson typically declines to comment publicly on pending legislation. So it’s “very disappointing” to him that Edmondson is now ignoring that practice.

As for me, I can’t say I’m seriously “disappointed.’ We’re disappointed by LAPSES in character, aren’t we? Not so much when persons with known character flaws — in this case, chronic contempt for democracy, the rule of law, the rights of the innocent — behave just as we expect.

Edmondson, after all, is currently trying to imprison me and two other honorable supporters of citizen initiative rights for our work on a 2005 initiative in Oklahoma. On fictional grounds. (See FreePaulJacob​.com for details.) So it’s not like Edmonson has swerved from the straight and narrow. And I’m not exactly spitting up hot coffee.

Maybe I’m nitpicking. It’s always disappointing when power-​grabbing incumbents act like power-​grabbing incumbents. Would be nice if they changed their stripes. Most never will.

Which is why we need term limits.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.