The News-Leader notes that it has editorialized against term limits since they Missouri approved them. I, too, have always opposed them and have written about the folly of term limits several times.
When you have term limits, as we are discovering, there is no one with institutional knowledge in the Senate or the House of Representatives, and the bureaucrats, lobbyists, and special interests end up running the show.
At least, that is what Missouri House Speaker Tim Jones, R-Eureka, has said. Jones has named a committee to find ways to “strengthen the institution’s effectiveness.” One way is to tweak term limits to allow legislators to stay in office twice as long.
Jones and other legislators — both Republican and Democrat — have pointed to problems with the shorter terms. Legislators are just learning how to be effective when their time is up. Committee chairs and other important positions that were previously reserved for powerful, long-term members are now being sought by freshman lawmakers with little institutional knowledge or ability to lead their committees or party members. And those inexperienced lawmakers begin to depend more on bureaucrats and lobbyists for guidance.
What Speaker of the House Jones has failed to mention is the most convincing argument against term limits. Without term limits, we would never have had someone like Tim Jones as Speaker of the House.
1 comment:
The lobbyists and bureaucrats end up running the show anyway as they purchase their candidates with big donations and gifts. The last thing we need is to make permanent residencies for the inept. They do enough harm in the short run.
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