Term Limits For Those Other Politicians : Government: Elected officials are circumventing Props. 140 and 164 by running for other offices.

The rhetoric surrounding Proposition 140, and later Proposition 164, presented the measures as simple but drastic solutions to a serious problem. Incumbents had too much power and were simply being reelected year after year, thus ensuring a continuation of all that was wrong in Sacramento and Washington.

Term limits were thought to be the only way to curb the runaway arrogance of career politicians and to make government work again. However, the increasingly apparent hypocrisy of both politicians and voters who support term limits should be disturbing to all.

Proposition 140 allows for no more than three terms in the state Assembly (six years), and two terms in the state Senate (eight years). Proposition 164 limits congressional terms to four (eight years). At a time when the reelection rate hovers around 98%, mandated turnover seemed like a good idea to the voters of California. And in Orange County, both measures passed by a strong majority.

Surprisingly enough, many politicians favored the idea. Even politicians who had served many more years than would be allowed under either proposition. Even those such as President Bush, Vice President Dan Quayle and Gov. Pete Wilson, who really have had no other careers outside of politics, endorsed the idea of term limits. Politicians around the state and throughout the country endorsed the idea of term limits. And here in Orange County, virtually all of the elected officials at the time endorsed Proposition 140.

Fast forward a few years. State Sen. Marian Bergeson (R-Newport Beach), a public officeholder since 1978, has announced that she will run for county supervisor, a seat not subject to term limits. And Assemblyman Gil Ferguson (R-Newport Beach), a member of the Assembly since 1984, has indicated that he, in turn, is interested in running for Bergeson’s Senate seat. Rep. Robert K. Dornan (R-Garden Grove), a career politician since 1976 and a firm supporter of term limits, is considering a run for the presidency.

If they really do support term limits, if they really don’t think government is best run by career politicians, why do they continue to seek public office?

Apparently, what they meant was that career politicians were OK, they just had to keep moving from office to office. Or perhaps what they meant by term limits is to limit someone else’s term, not their own.

The support for term limits comes almost exclusively from Republicans, who just happen to be the legislative minority both in California and in Congress, and who seem to think that term limits are the only way to unseat gainfully elected Democrats. Maybe that’s what they meant, but that’s not exactly what they said at the time.

But is that what the voters meant? Must be, because the same voters who voted for Propositions 140 and 164 returned almost every incumbent back to office.

And now, there has been a strange silence from those same voters as they watch the career politicians scurry to save their jobs. What did the voters want? Obviously, here in Orange County they didn’t really want to reform government and make it work, since they seem content to keep recycling the same old faces. They, too, must simply have wanted to limit other voter’s choices, not their own.

That’s the real problem with term limits: They work best only when applied to the other guys, those elected in other districts who do things “we” don’t like. What seems to have been forgotten in all the rhetoric is the simple fact that the potential for term limits exists at every election: All the voters need do is vote for someone else.

But that means two things. First, they have to vote. Term limits takes away even the “throw the bums out” incentive to vote. Just wait a few years and the bums are automatically thrown out. And second, it means that in highly partisan areas, like Orange County, it would mean voting against the entrenched majority. Apparently for many Republicans, that just isn’t an option. So term limits for them simply means keeping the same old career politicians around, just in different offices.

If voters really want term limits, then they should vote against politicians who have been around too long. If politicians really want term limits, they shouldn’t keep running for office. It’s that simple.