Term limits that Colorado voters imposed on lawmakers more than a decade ago have weakened the state legislature, not made it more accountable, researchers contend.
Intended to rid states of career politicians, term limits have eroded lawmakers’ institutional memory, respect for the process and civility, and placed more power in the executive branch of state governments, said those who have examined the issue in Colorado and across the country.
“I think Colorado’s electorate … has basically shot itself in the foot,” said John Straayer, who has studied and written about the issue. “The legislature is not as smart of an institution as it once was.”
Straayer, a political science professor at Colorado State University, said term limits are another example of an alleged government reform that is an easy sell to the voters but comes with “damaging consequences.”
The Colorado Term Limits Coalition disagrees. The group’s chairman, Dennis Polhill, said none of the arguments against term limits “are factually true.”
He said the measure passed by 71 percent in 1990 because “the notion that people get elected and stay elected for their lifetime is un-American.”
The limits bar state and some local elected officials from serving more than eight consecutive years and “cleans out the constipated system,” Polhill said.
Civility and ethics woes
But a four-year national study shows that term limits didn’t reduce the number of politicians who were worried more about their next career move than they were about the folks back home – it increased their numbers, said Jennie Drage Bowser, who headed the review.
“It’s not the populists’ dream of the regular citizen serving for eight years and then going back home and taking the job they had before,” she said.
In Colorado, Drage Bowser said, the turnover rate from 2003 to 2004 was only 4 percent higher in the House and 6 percent higher in the Senate than in 1993 to 1994.
The study was conducted jointly among the National Conference of State Legislatures, the Council of State Governments and the State Legislative Leaders Foundation. Straayer also contributed to the review.
The groups did case studies in nine states – six with term limits, including Colorado, and three without – to reach their conclusions.
They also surveyed the nation’s 7,500 state elected officials and compared the answers with a 1995 survey that predated term limits, Drage Bowser said.
“There’s an enormous change in leadership, and it’s harder for leaders to lead. Committees function in more chaos than they used to. There’s less civility in the legislature than there used to be,” she said.
During the four-month Colorado legislative session that ended last week, there were plenty of attacks that both sides called uncivil.
Ethics investigations led to the resignation of Democratic Sen. Deanna Hanna and Republican Rep. Joe Stengel handing over his leadership post.
Salvos from Democrats and Republicans accusing the other of unethical behavior were a regular feature of the session.
While some shrug it off as election-year politics, former Republican Sen. Norma Anderson said the intense partisan bickering wouldn’t have happened before term limits.
“It would have been controlled. It would have never happened because you have strong leadership,” she said.
Veteran lawmakers, she said, passed down the decorum and traditions of the institution. Party leaders were respected and had clout.
“One of the biggest problems I see is lame-duck leadership, which means lack of control,” she said.
Leadership turnover
But Polhill said the ethics charges don’t have “anything to do with term limits. It’s ridiculous.”
“I don’t think the new guys have any less leadership than the old guys,” he said. “To argue that a freshman can’t be effective is wrong. And if they are ineffective, isn’t that an indication that something is wrong?”
In fact, Bruce Cain, a political science professor at the University of California, Berkeley, said his work has shown that while term limits haven’t helped diffuse partisanship, there’s no evidence that they have exacerbated it.
Polhill believes the partisan fighting has more to do with lawmakers who approve district boundary lines that keep their seats solidly Republican or Democratic, which allows lawmakers to be more partisan.
Overall, Drage Bowser said, term limits have weakened the legislature.
“Perhaps the most disturbing trend that we found was a shift in power out of the legislative branch and into the executive branch,” she said.
Since term limits were passed in California – where lawmakers are limited to six years in the Assembly and eight in the Senate over a lifetime – lawmakers are more likely to accept the governor’s budget proposals and spend less time examining the administration’s workings, said Cain, a contributor to the study.
“A lot of the expertise and the oversight we got from the legislature has been undercut. People spend a lot of time focusing on their next run because they only have six years,” Cain said.
New people, new ideas
In Colorado, Straayer said, there are 100 people who know the clock is running to find another job and are often eyeing a gig in the governor’s administration.
Lawmakers can be loath to challenge the administration when they feel the governor is threatening the institution’s authority, Straayer said.
“(There’s a) legislative timidity when the legislature should be standing up against the executive,” he said.
But Polhill said it is a reflection of poor character, not term limits, that a lawmaker would vote with the governor in hopes of getting a job.
“If they’re going to vote to the detriment of the voters of Colorado, the faster we get them out the better,” he said.
Ultimately, Polhill said, term limits bring more people and fresh ideas into the process.
“After term limits went into effect, Colorado did not fall into the ocean. Legislative and political leadership did not get any worse,” he said. “It would have to get worse to entertain the notion that there’s any problems.”
Staff writer Chris Frates can be reached at 303-820-1633 or cfrates@denverpost.com.
