Term limits are a failed political experiment. Born of good intent, they bring more harm to Colorado’s political system than good.
It’s time to toss the theory, and the laws, onto that great dustbin of history.
Presented to voters in the 1990s on promises of ridding government of “entrenched” incumbents who make careers feeding at the public trough – in Colorado, longtime U.S. Rep. Patricia Schroeder was the poster child – term limits have been so popular in Colorado that voters approved three different versions, in 1990, 1994 and 1996.
Schroeder ended her distinguished career of her own volition, but now, a decade or more after the three amendments passed, countless county coroners and district attorneys have been drummed out of office, not by voters but by the rulebook – often replaced by less-qualified successors.
Term limits also have considerably weakened Colorado’s legislature, according to a new study that just reinforces what most Colorado political watchers already know.
Hostility has increased between lawmakers because they no longer need to forge long-term relationships.
Leadership is lacking because lawmakers who cycle out every eight years don’t have enough time in the saddle to learn how to lead, or to earn the right. That lack of leadership, and the lack of relationships, allows for the partisan sniping that has cast an ugly pall on the statehouse in recent years.
Term limits also can discourage ambition in solid lawmakers who see no hope of assuming a leadership position during their shortened tenures.
Most important, the increase in inexperienced lawmakers has shifted power at the statehouse to lobbyists, who often have more seniority and know the history of the issues more intimately than lawmakers.
That’s not who’s supposed to be running our representative democracy.
“I think Colorado’s electorate … has basically shot itself in the foot,” said John Straayer, who has studied the issue. “The legislature is not as smart of an institution as it once was.”
Skeptical? Just watch the lawmakers scurrying to the backs of chambers to learn more about bills and issues from lobbyists.
Voters should undo the artificial limits slapped on Colorado’s elected leaders, just as they have done at the local level.
In 1994, voters narrowly approved Amendment 17, which broadened the scope of the 1990 Colorado amendment – the first in the U.S. – that set limits on state and national officials. It affected every local politician, from city council member to school board member to county treasurer. However, since then, more than 100 municipalities have either eliminated term limits or extended the number of terms that can be served. About 50 of Colorado’s 64 counties have lifted or expanded term limits for elected officials, mostly in rural areas.
The terms of governor, lieutenant governor, attorney general, state treasurer and secretary of state are still limited to two consecutive terms. State senators also are limited to two four-year terms, and state representatives are limited to four consecutive two-year terms.
It’s time to undo those binding limits.
Need further proof that Coloradans were sold a bill of goods in the 1990s? One of those who was doing the promising about getting rid of “entrenched” fat-cat politicians was Tom Tancredo, then chairman of the Colorado Term Limits Coalition. He’s now better known as an “entrenched” Washington politician who broke his own non- binding term limits pledge and shows no signs of voluntarily leaving the perks of congressional life behind. (Tancredo’s flagrant disregard for his own term-limits pledge would have been our only argument left to actually support mandatory term limits, but the Supreme Court overturned the efforts of Colorado and other states to limit congressional terms.)
“Term limits will change the entire picture of politics in America,” Tancredo said in 1994.
Indeed, it has. But not for the best.
