A reality based independent journal of observation & analysis, serving the Flathead Valley & Montana since 2006. © James Conner.

2 April 2015

Term limiteers kill another attempt to mitigate term limits

Montanans value experience — except in the making of their laws. In that endeavor, they scorn and fear experience. We know that because through the ballot box our friends and neighbors imposed draconian term limits on Montana legislators and elected state officials.

Term limits exist because a large majority of Montanans fear and distrust government. They ask not “what can government do for me,” but “what can government do to me.” Believing that legislative experience increases the power to do evil, they believe that limiting legislative experience will limit evil.

It’s that simple. Tea party Republicans exploit that fear by trying to reduce the government to a minarchy, while many Democrats fear to defend government as good for society.

The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity

The consequence of term limits? The disappearance of legislators who through long experience, sometimes decades of experience, acquire impressive expertise on issues, become masters of the legislative process, and serve as living institutional memories. That expertise now is found mostly in the bureaucracy and lobbyists, putting legislators at the mercy of special interests.

But few seem to notice or care. Now that Montana has survived a generation under term limits, the memory of the skills and wisdom of long term legislators such as Chet Blaylock and Matt Himsl is faint if not extinguished.

Legislators with wit and courage

Every now and then a legislator with wit and courage introduces a bill to repeal or weaken term limits. Most of these bills get tabled in committee, although in 2004 one made it to the general election ballot where the voters rejected it resoundingly.

The latest attempt to weaken term limits, HB-639, was introduced on 25 March by Rep. Ellie Boldman Hill (D-Missoula). It missed the 31 March deadline for transmittal of proposed referenda, and was tabled in the MT House’s state administration committee on 1 April. In February, SB-383, Sen. Bradley Hamlett’s (D-Cascade) bill to repeal term limits, was tabled in the MT Senate’s judiciary committee. Neither bill had a chance. Each was introduced to make a point and to try to start a discussion on the wisdom of term limits.

Leashes too short led to the U.S. Constitution

Support for term limits dates back to the Continental Congress and the Articles of Confederation. As Gary Wills tells the story in A Necessary Evil, representatives to the Continental Congress, and later to the Congress of the Confederation under the Articles of Confederation, were kept on leashes so short that gaining useful governing experience was next to impossible. Not until the U.S. Constitution was adopted did terms of office become long enough for elected officials to gain the experience needed for governing wisely.

Neither the U.S. nor the Montana constitution as originally adopted limited the number of terms that elected officials could serve. Explicit limits on time served came later. Instead, the constitutions provided for regular elections so that the voters could end or extend the service of incumbents.

The 22nd Amendment

Then Franklin Roosevelt sought a third term in 1940, breaking with the informal custom of Presidents serving only two terms (see Richard Moe’s Roosevelt's Second Act: The Election of 1940 and the Politics of War). He was elected to a fourth term in 1944, but served only a little more than two months of it before he died on 12 April 1945.

Two years later, the Republican controlled Congress, intent on making sure Americans were never again subjected to 12 straight years of enlightened Presidential leadership, approved the 22nd Amendment:

Section 1. No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice, and no person who has held the office of President, or acted as President, for more than two years of a term to which some other person was elected President shall be elected to the office of the President more than once.

Amendment XXII became part of the Constitution when Minnesota ratified it on 27 February 1951. I consider it the worst amendment ever, even worse than the 18th Amendment that inflicted Prohibition upon the nation. FDR, incidentally, backed the 21st Amendment, which repealed Prohibition.

Montana waited until 1992, 20 years after adopting its current constitution, to adopt a constitutional amendment imposing term limits on legislators, statewide elected officials, and Montana’s members of Congress:

Section 8. Limitation on terms of office.

(1) The secretary of state or other authorized official shall not certify a candidate's nomination or election to, or print or cause to be printed on any ballot the name of a candidate for, one of the following offices if, at the end of the current term of that office, the candidate will have served in that office or had he not resigned or been recalled would have served in that office:

  1. 8 or more years in any 16-year period as governor, lieutenant governor, secretary of state, state auditor, attorney general, or superintendent of public instruction;
  2. 8 or more years in any 16-year period as a state representative;
  3. 8 or more years in any 16-year period as a state senator;
  4. 6 or more years in any 12-year period as a member of the U.S. house of representatives; and
  5. 12 or more years in any 24-year period as a member of the U.S. senate.

(2) When computing time served for purposes of subsection (1), the provisions of subsection (1) do not apply to time served in terms that end during or prior to January 1993.

(3) Nothing contained herein shall preclude an otherwise qualified candidate from being certified as nominated or elected by virtue of write-in votes cast for said candidate.

Subsections (d) and (e) are, of course, unconstitutional attempts to nullify the U.S. Constitution. They’re invalid, but they remain in the Montana Constitution and should be repealed. So should all of Section 8, of course, but that won’t happen anytime soon.

Although I appreciate the efforts of Hill and Hamlett, and believe that repeal bills should continue to be introduced, I believe that a successful campaign to repeal term limits can emerge only from a grassroots movement. That in turn requires a widespread recognition that term limits hurt rather than protect society. As that prerequisite for reform is not yet upon us, we are condemned to a legislature with less experience than is wise.