COMMENTARIES : Term Limits Ensure Fairness on All Levels

I have just returned from a Glendale city forum where term limitations for the Glendale City Council was the main topic of discussion. Three-term City Councilman Larry Zarian iterated in his typical long-winded oratorical style that he favors term limits at state and federal legislative levels, but not local city levels.

Larry also went on to explain how he invited the proponents of Glendale City Council term limits to speak tonight and how they had declined his offer. Larry admittedly only gave them three days’ notice to attend. This is a monthly forum, why did Larry only give them three days’ advance notice?

Larry and two-term Glendale City Councilman Carl Raggio presented nothing new in terms of reasons for opposing term limits. They used the same old arguments that the state legislative incumbents used when they were fighting Proposition 140. Proposition 140 imposed limitations on how many terms our state legislative incumbents could serve. It was passed by the people of this state in November of 1990.

What was sad was that Willie Brown, the speaker of the house, and his consorts were so outraged that the people of this state would dare to rise up against the incumbents and pass Prop 140, that they decided to spend our hard-earned tax dollars to fight the people’s initiative through the courts, to fight the people who elected them. In the end, the incumbents lost the court battle, but at our expense.

Officials opposing term limits apparently do not believe in allowing you, the ordinary citizen, the power of choosing term limits unless you earn it by retrieving the required 15,000 signatures of registered voters, spending thousands of dollars in attorneys’ fees and volunteers’ time. Why do we endure those we elect to make it difficult and costly for us to initiate change? We must resolve ourselves to sending a strong message back to these incumbents, at all costs.

Term limits have already been documented as an effective vehicle for increasing citizen control over our government. For example, are we not better off for having limited the President of the United States to two terms? Are we not better off for having limited our state governor to two terms? Are we not better off for deciding on term limits for our state legislative body?

I believe all ethnicities would be better served with term limits. It would provide more opportunity for all challengers when there are no incumbents to race against. Term limits would help to ensure fairness. It could potentially increase voter turnout, knowing that a new candidate would have an equal chance at winning.

It would affect Glendale in a positive way, by allowing a fair and equal opportunity for a greater number of people to run for office. With the injection of new blood comes new ideas and energy. Term limitation would assure the turnover necessary to keep council members in touch with the challengers and give voters a reason to participate again. It could possibly negate or subside the call for council districts.