When We Said Eight, We Meant Twelve
The will of the people rang out loud and clear. Even New Yorkers who had never had a kind word to say about their out-spoken mayor were calling his name out in the streets. “Rudy! Rudy!” His unwavering grace under pressure has transformed Rudy Guiliani from a lame duck subject of tabloid ridicule to one of the most respected men in America and downright adored in his own city.
As a former New Yorker, I have also had my issues with Mayor Guiliani during his terms as mayor. He has at times been too brash, too harsh, and too combative. In the past, when patience and finesse were needed, he showed neither. During that last mayoral election, I applauded my mother’s decision to support his opponent. However, his handling of the aftermath of the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center left me no less than stunned at his ability to bring a shattered city together. It took the experience gained over each and every minute of his two terms in office. Only in that time could he have learned enough about New York to know what to do to help guide the city back from hell. So, in the names of all the family and friends I still have in New York City, I am happy to stand corrected about Rudy Guiliani.
I am, however, a bit miffed at the New Yorkers who are now decrying the term limitation that prevents Guiliani from running for a third term. Their arguments: the city needs Guiliani’s guidance to heal, a transition would be too jarring, etc. My personal favorite is from New York Daily News columnist Michael Kramer who wrote “[N]o one is a Republican of Democrat these days. We are all Americans and New Yorkers. The simple way . . . to give content to those expressions is to embrace the idea of expanding our choice for mayor.” Choice? That sounds suspiciously like the word term limit opponents like myself argued that voters give up when they back legislation that limits the terms of elected officials. New Yorkers voted in favor of term limits in 1993 and city council’s attempts to repeal the law failed twice in the last eight years. Now, when faced with the very real consequences of those actions, not everyone is a quite so sure term limits are that great after all.
It’s not just New Yorkers that are having second thoughts. Many Congressional Republicans who ran in 1994 on the Party’s “Contract With America” (which promised term limits) went back on their pledges to seek only a certain number of terms. Among them, Washington State Representative George Nethercutt, who ran for a fourth term in 2000 and won, though he had promised to step down after three. He argued that he still had “unfinished business” in the House and that, “the voters have expressed confidence in me.”
Colorado Republican Scott McInnes ran for a fourth and fifth term in the House after promising only three. When pressed for his reasons, McInnes’ spokesperson said that he “had underestimated the value of experience” in Washington. Some Republicans argue that keeping their term limits pledges would be harmful to the party because it would throw their districts open to Democratic challenge in 2002 and the Republican hold on the House is already precarious. With that in mind, key Republicans are more than willing to put term limits on the back burner. “The truth is term limits doesn’t pull very well,” said Jill Schroeder, spokeswoman for the National Republican Congressional Committee. “It’s way down in exit polls. It sounds good, but people like their members.”
As a result of all this flip-flopping, the activist/advocacy group U.S. Term Limits found itself at odds with the very people who were its strongest supporters only a few years ago. The organization spent millions of dollars in Washington State in 2000, airing television ads which branded Nethercutt the “Weasel King” for breaking his pledge. They also planned a $20 million “education campaign” to keep the issue of term limits in the public eye. The group pledges to continue working to put term limits referendums on state and local ballots across and the country in an effort oust a “class of career politicians who have insulated themselves from the public will and grown less and less representative of the people.”
In theory, perhaps, it seems that term limits are the answer to a government that has seemingly ground to a halt. By forcing in “new blood” every few years, we can certainly get things done faster and more efficiently. Less time, less waste, less of all the bad stuff and more of what we elect our officials to do – act on our behalf. The reality is that being an elected official is not all that different from any other profession – there is a learning curve. As Rep. McInnes learned, just as a beat cop hones his instincts through years on the streets, it takes more than two years to learn the ins and outs of Washington in order to get anything done. Without any experienced leaders, the government doesn’t move faster, it retreads ground, locked in an endless cycle of learning and relearning without any action.
Secondly, Washington (and most state legislatures) has a power structure, which is built into the system. Should a state or district be forced to oust a representative who has reached a key committee chairmanship or other post and is poised to make a lasting contribution? Shouldn’t they be allowed to decide for themselves? U.S Term Limits blasts “career politicians” but I wonder just whom they would have in charge in times of crises, such as we find ourselves in right now. We need the guidance, the patience, and the wisdom of at least some lifelong public servants in times like these. And, the fact is, we don’t know when times like these are going to happen.
Yes, there are certainly representatives in Washington, in our state capitals and in our city councils who have grown too comfortable and complacent in their chairs. In an ideal world, these people would step down when they felt they were not being effective, but pride, party loyalty, inertia and the indifference of the voting public combine to create that class of career politicians that certainly does exist. The solution, though, is not to limit our ability to choose who we want in those seats, it’s to fully use our rights. Term limits are not the answer, a more informed and responsive electorate is. The money and energy that U.S Term Limits and other organizations spend fighting for legislation that curbs our choices could be better spent educating younger voters about the process, getting them involved in campaigns, working for widespread campaign finance reform, and working on ways to raise voter turnout across the board. To paraphrase our favorite fictional president, Josiah Bartlett, we don’t need term limits, we just need to use the ones we already have – they’re called elections.
