Michigan Legislators Feeling, Reeling From Term Limits Imposed by Voters : Politics: Voters set the clock ticking in 1992, capping state House terms at six years and Senate terms at eight. Newcomers now say that’s not enough to get things done. But tactic gains popularity in U.S.

Chuck Perricone, Kalamazoo’s state representative of less than four months, can’t sleep at night. He worries about votes he cast the day before, the politicking he plans tomorrow.

Term limits give him just six years to learn the ropes and reach the top.

“I don’t have much time,” lamented the former accountant, an earnest, 34-year-old Republican. “This is like you’re taking an exam, and that’s the pressure every day. It never goes away, because you know the instructors will be gone in four years.”

Term limits, the popular 1990s cure for unwanted incumbency, is electrifying life under the wedding-cake dome of Michigan’s Statehouse. Twenty states, including this one, voted to limit longevity for their state and congressional lawmakers; two others voted only to limit terms in Congress. Michigan will be among the first to feel the repercussions because its law took effect so quickly.

Michigan voters set the clock ticking in 1992, approving a six-year maximum for House seats, eight in the Senate. Its U.S. House members get three terms, U.S. senators, two.

By 1999, no one in the state House will have served more than four years; four years later, the same will be true of the state Senate. So although the pre-term limits generation still makes up more than half Michigan’s 148-member Legislature, change is apparent.

Some among the newly elected are hunting for their next job--as lobbyists. Longtimers, feeling redundant, are departing early. Less time is spent getting to know colleagues, oiling the wheels of democratic compromise.

A few say it’s more fun. But nearly all, even term-limits supporters, agree Michigan’s limits are too short to learn the work and be effective.

Perricone is ambitious; he’s already angling for a leadership job. But he and other worry how they will run the place without veterans to guide them. And there are indications that lobbyists have more influence, just as term-limit opponents warned.

Other term-limit states are seeing similar effects. California legislators bailing out for other jobs are setting off chain-reactions of special elections. Assembly and Senate vacancies for next year number 36 at last count, four times the number before limits.

And in Maine’s House of Representatives, where turnover doubled to 50% partly because of the GOP sweep, committees have more difficulty reaching consensus. It’s estimated that 20% of bills may reach the House floor this year recommending both passage and defeat.

Congress failed to pass national term limits, despite the GOP’s pledge to do so in its “contract with America.” And a U.S. Supreme Court ruling expected by summer could repeal term limits that 22 states set for their congressional representatives.

But the term-limits juggernaut keeps rumbling along. Mississippi voters decide in November if they want state and congressional term limits. New Hampshire’s Legislature adopted term limits for Congress; the bill is awaiting the governor’s signature. South Carolina and Texas have bills pending. Polls show support for term limits remains as high as 75%, though commitment does not run deep.

A March 27-29 Gallup survey found 61% of Americans support limits for members of Congress, with 54% favoring terms topped at six years. But the poll of 1,015 adults also indicated the Republican promise of term limits was far less important to most Americans than reducing the federal budget deficit, a balanced-budget amendment or cutting taxes.

Meanwhile, a man responsible for Michigan’s limits is tasting his own medicine.

After making a fortune in business, Glenn Steil, a 54-year-old Republican from Grand Rapids, helped lead the victorious term-limits campaign and then got elected to the state Senate when death created a vacancy.

“Now, after a year under my belt, (I see) . . . experience has some of its advantages,” he said.

That view gets no sympathy from Republican state Sen. Bill Schuette.

“If this institutional memory we could lose by term limits is so positive, why do we have the problems we do?” said Schuette, at 41 already a congressman (1985-90) and state agriculture director (1991-94).

Schuette gets a charge from the faster pace. “It compresses decision-making,” he said with glee. “It frees me from hesitations, of any--’Gee, is it risky politically?’ ”

Term limits also shorten horizons. “There seems to be no interest in long-range vision anymore,” complained seven-term Democratic state Rep. Maxine Berman, a 49-year-old former teacher.

For instance, she objected to $2 million for breast cancer research, a measure now in budget limbo, because current legislators could not ensure that there would be continuity.

“You’re starting a tradition here. We don’t put money into cancer research. What if the next bunch doesn’t want it?

“If you say to somebody, ‘This may seem like a good idea, but in six years this may come to haunt us,’ they don’t care,” Berman said. “They just look at you like you’re crazy.”

“If the people absolutely want term limits, my plea would be don’t do what Michigan did,” said House Speaker Paul Hillegonds. Go for at least 12 years, he said.

In the House since 1979 and facing a mandatory career change, the 46-year-old Hillegonds is trying to institute traditions on short notice to train those who soon will be in charge.

He created two more jobs in the GOP caucus inner circle and put novices on important committees, including tax policy and judiciary. To conserve the energy of those still learning, he got rid of a quarter of the committees and assigned each representative to two or three, instead of four or five.

Of course, his successor could scrap all that. Hillegonds won’t be around to see it.

For veteran Republicans enjoying full control of the House for the first time in 26 years, term limits come down hard. Rather than run a last time, Hillegonds may take his law degree and go teach. “I ask myself, is it fair to serve another two years when there are other, younger members who want to serve leadership roles?”

Other jobs entice. Lobbyist Patrick Laughlin estimates a dozen lawmakers just elected or reelected in November have sounded him out about job prospects.

Lobbyists also work harder. High turnover keeps them on the run. Besides pitching bills, lobbyists also find they’re instructing lawmakers in how things work.

Karen Holcomb-Merrill runs the Michigan chapter of Common Cause, the national citizen watchdog group and a term-limits foe. As she plugs for finance reform, ethics, open meetings laws and the like, Holcomb-Merrill said she’s astonished at ignorance of such matters. “They’re not aware there are things public officials have been required to do for 20 years,” she said.

On the other hand, she said, term limits may help her efforts after all. “You could say the benefits might be new perspectives, new ideas,” Holcomb-Merrill said. “The longer legislators are around, the less they want to change the system, which is what we want to do.”

Michigan voters also limited the governor to two four-year terms. Republican Gov. John Engler was in his first term when limits passed; now in his second, he would be eligible for one more if he wants it.

Engler observes newcomers pushing to get noticed. He sees senators anxiously looking over their shoulders at ambitious representatives eyeing their districts. A proponent of term limits, Engler judges Michigan’s “kind of tight.”

Engler suggested that other term-limit states install professional permanent staff. He also recommended courses to teach lawmaking, and cable coverage of legislative sessions so future candidates could sample what’s to come.

If Michigan voters have noticed the changes, they haven’t told their representatives.

“I don’t think they figured that out yet,” said state Rep. Michelle McManus, a 28-year-old second termer from rural Lake Leelanau.

The best McManus can do is work hard and make the voters regret, someday, that their term limits forced her out of office.

“When it comes up to term limits,” she said, “I hope they think I did a good enough job that they would have wanted me another six years.”