Central to the discussion of is the fundamental truth stated by the noted British historian Lord Acton, when he said, "Power tends to corrupt; absolute power corrupts absolutely.” That truism is placed in proper context when it is noted that 98.5% of incumbents who rerun for office are reelected to the non term-limited U.S. Congress. (www.termlimits.org)
How many political incumbents can we name that we know should be replaced, but history proves that name recognition, voter apathy and the high cost of running a campaign puts the advantage of winning an election squarely on the incumbents? Imagine if there were no term limits on the U.S. Presidency and George W. Bush had continued to be reelected indefinitely!
Municipal term limits have spread quietly but steadily across country. There are nearly 3,000 term-limited cities, counties and municipalities in the United States, including 10 of our largest cities, such as Los Angeles, New York, Houston, and even Peoria.
Support for term limits goes back to Thomas Jefferson who in 1789 proposed a limited political tenure "to prevent any danger which might arise to the freedoms of the people" by having members of the Continental Congress remain in office too long. Our nation's framers must be writhing in their graves at the political system that rules us today, instead of vice versa, with its dominant cadre of lifelong career politicians and its embedded culture of corruption.
Entrenched and self-serving politicians argue that the election process alone should dictate the number of terms they are allowed to serve. Okay. Then why do they stand in the way of having the proposition placed on the ballot and letting the people vote on it?
This applies as well to the voters who are against term limits. Okay. So support putting the proposition on the ballot and let the people vote on it. Those who seek to prevent this or any other public issue from going before the voters are traitors to democracy. Voters should cast a suspicious eye upon the incumbent politician who seeks to prevent them from voting on the issue of term limits, or any other one for that matter.
I think they should stay out of it and honor the democratic process. It is not about them, it is about the people and the good of the city. If it is so that politicians are only reelected because they are who the people want, then why has the approval of congressional members ranged from 13-17% in recent months?
I realize that some members of this City Council have tried to move on but have found that they are unelectable to higher office, so they simply stay. Others have no desire to move on and give up their local realm of power. It may be true that some of them have done "good things" and they should. They are elected and expected to do "good things."
It depends on the balance. And that does not mean that someone else could not do better or that we should not hear new ideas from new people; in fact the opposite is true. We should welcome new brain power as well as new faces and voices that might be very talented and capable, but feel marginalized by a process that renders them helpless to compete.
Replacing council members also means periodically replacing some city employees and that would also help to eliminate a lot of the corruptive, stale and stagnant politics that occur when the same people retain positions of control and power for too long. If term limits are a threat to politicians, so be it. They are good for the people.
You start out by saying "absolute power corrupts absolutely." OK, there's some truth to that - but it has nothing to do with West Hollywood. Our council members (there are five of them, they are not one person) don't remotely have absolute power. And as to whether they are corrupt - still waiting for any evidence on that. If you want local evidence of the disaster of term limits, go to Sacramento. There's your evidence. It used to be a workable, active, useful body. Term limits ruined it. And George W. Bush wouldn't have been elected to a third term. But with term limits, FDR wouldn't have had a third or fourth, and we might to this day be dominated by the Japanese and Nazi empires.
Thankyou Woody and Thomas Jefferson.
As for your continued calls to “just google it,” you imply that scholarly studies with absolute evidence that local term limits have negative consequences are just lined up one after the other to back you up. I’d ask you, since you’ve obviously already done that research, to share the links with us to some of those studies on the effects of local term limits. One of the most recent widely distributed studies I can find concerns your bug-a-boo, CA state term limits (http://www.ncsl.org/Portals/1/documents/jptl/casestudies/Californiav2.pdf). Although it is critical as to some loss of expertise required to deal with the extremely complicated state legislative process (vs. WeHo’s far simpler issues and procedures), they conclude term limits should not be ended but amended to allow more years in a single legislative body. That is exactly what voters did in the last election by approving Prop 29 – it “lowered” the limit from 14 to 12 years, but allowed all those years to be served in either the Assembly or the Senate.
Thanks for the thoughtful post. On ballot turnout - the passion for this issue would be with the pro-term limit folks. On a lot of issues, passion trumps majority view (see under the national abortion debate over the past decades, and other one-issues that people vote on), and in any case, the default position before the merits are explained on both sides for most people is to be in favor. On googling, I didn't mean to imply that it is a black and white case. I meant people should explore the issue in more detail. One of the things I noted is that some scholars state that the case for limits among executives (governors, mayors, where power is invested in one person) is much stronger than for legislators (which is what our council members are), and it is in the latter in which the damage is much more of a risk. Prop 29 did take care of some of the CA legislature problem. But still, I am against any limits for reasons I could further details. Now could I ask you - since all the current long term members can serve even if this passes 2-3 more terms, is this really worth the effort? And seriously, if Heilman and Land do manage to get reelected for even longer, wouldn't that at least in part be a sign that the city continues overall to do well and residents are generally happy? To me, if they are still there 12+ years from now (unlikely even if term limits fail if it even gets on the ballot), one could argue that the city will continue to thrive.
Voters have shown in recent years (last year and 10 years ago) that residents are capable of voting for change. We just need candiates like the ones who asked to be considered for appointment in 2009. Many of those individuals are the ones who should be running, not the bunch that ran in 2011 (with the exception of Steve Martin). If the voters are disatisfied and they have good choices, change can happen.
There are two steps in this process… First, we need to collect signatures to petition City Council to ask them to put the Term Limits question on the March ballot. (There is a dual purpose for this -- when we collect signatures, we will be building up our email list as well.) If the Council majority chooses not to put Term Limits on the ballot, then we will need to gather signatures for an Initiative to put it on the March ballot. Please go to www.wehotermlimits.com to register for the mailing list and to download the form to get petition signatures. (Please note, signing this petition does not mean you are necessarily "for" Term Limits but rather, that you are for Voters having a choice. Please give West Hollywood Voters the opportunity to decide whether they want Term Limits or not. Please feel free to share this email with your friends.) Thank you!
Quality, qualified and smart candidates should start considering the 2013 election. As a bonus, if people choose to sign a petition for 13 years from now....go for it.