Term Limits Shake Up the Status Quo in Five State Capitols

Pedaling up to one suburban doorbell after another on his blue mountain bike, Rep. Don Gilmer looked more like some fresh-faced neophyte than one of Michigan’s most powerful lawmakers.

But after 22 years in the state House of Representatives, Gilmer was back on the street, campaigning door-to-door--something he hadn’t done since his first race in 1976.

It was an unfamiliar situation--not only that Gilmer was facing a challenge, but also who he faced and why.

Like 63 of his fellow 110 House members, Gilmer is “termed out” this year, the first class of Michigan legislators to be shown the door since voters approved term limits in 1992. Since term limits don’t prevent people from pursuing other offices, Gilmer decided to run for state Senate, where term limits don’t kick in until 2002.

After only three serious election challenges in his political career, Gilmer was the underdog for the first time, running in a Republican Senate primary in a district that includes only 20% of his faithful constituents.

“I’m a resourceful guy. Hey, if I lose, I can go back and work on the farm,” he said.

Now, Newcomers Hit the Ground Running

Job insecurity for hordes of lawmakers is just part of the picture of term limits, a ballot movement embraced in 18 states in the early 1990s with the aim of breaking up entrenched power and pumping fresh blood into the body politic.

Limits take effect in five of those states this year--the biggest bunch so far. Chambers are clearing out in Arkansas, California, Colorado, Michigan and Oregon, and rumors are rampant about who’s seeking other offices, who’s trying to snag a lucrative lobbyist gig and who’s headed for retirement.

It has been a time of weepy goodbyes, but also of serious jockeying for power among freshmen, candidates and lobbyists as the senior leadership fades out and a new political culture emerges.

“It used to be that you had five years to learn where the john was, and first-term legislators were seen and not heard,” said Marge Malarney, who has lobbied in Lansing for the city of Detroit for 23 years.

“Now you have to hit the ground running.”

With the seniority system breaking down, new lawmakers are making their own deals and agendas and generally ignoring leaders they would have obeyed before term limits. Although the flow of debate is less rigid, experts say it is also less productive.

“The public wants to see an institution that operates in a businesslike environment. It doesn’t like to see partisan bickering, or budgets not getting passed on time,” said Nancy Rhyme, with the National Conference of State Legislatures, who cited budget clashes this year in Oregon and Michigan. “It makes for an unruly process.”

Job Searches Eat Into Work Time

State party leaders and others also have condemned representatives like Gilmer for challenging incumbent senators of their own party.

Cannibalism, Malarney calls it. “Is it a good thing to try and eliminate someone who’s doing a good job just because you need a job?”

Another downside: so-called “legislative attention deficit disorder,” the distraction of knowing your tenure is ticking away.

Committee heads say term-limited legislators show up at meetings less frequently and leave earlier, consumed by the search for private jobs or by their campaigns for leadership positions.

Proponents, however, couldn’t be happier about the new vibe.

“It wasn’t the intent of term limits to make things run smoothly at the Capitol. It was the intent to make things run smoothly in citizens’ lives,” said Pat Anderson, a political consultant who wrote Michigan’s term-limit law and has successfully defended it in seven courts.

The full effect of term limits won’t be known until long-termers in both houses are gone. Some predict lower-quality legislation; others say budgets will be passed and laws made just as before.

At least one optimistic prediction has already come true: a lot more people are running for office.

In Michigan, 494 people filed to run for the House, the most since the state adopted a new Constitution in 1964.

But opponents may have had a point too. They argued that legislators whose terms are limited would be tempted to use public office to secure employment after they term out.

In Arkansas, the attorney general sued three term-limited lawmakers who violated the state Constitution by taking state jobs; in two of the cases, the legislators helped create the jobs they later took. The cases were settled out of court.

In other states, legislators and prosecutors say term limits have made them more vigilant in policing conflicts of interest. But they have no evidence that the problem has worsened.

House Minority Leader Ken Sikkema, a termed-out Republican running for state Senate, doesn’t think term limits will affect the quality of legislation either way. “Legislators have a sense their time is limited and they’ll do well, after some initial sorting out,” he says.

A glimpse into the future may lie in California and Maine, the only two states with term-limit experience. The limits kicked in for the California Assembly and the entire Maine Legislature in 1996. California senators are termed out this year. (The new California law stipulates three two-year terms for assemblymen and two four-year terms for senators).

In Sacramento, legislators say the new atmosphere is less clubby. People often don’t know one another’s names and can skimp on compromise and courtesy; after all, they’ll only be working together for a short while.

“It has become less decorous. Socializing has demonstrably diminished,” says Sen. Quentin Kopp, a crusty San Francisco Independent whose 12-year tenure terms out this year. “Socializing breaks down barriers and acrimony on the floor.”

Little Experience, Lots of Responsibility

More important to the public, perhaps, is that the process of making laws has totally changed.

Gone are the days when three or four veterans controlled the fate of legislation, leaving some bills to die and, in the words of one longtime lobbyist, “sprinkling holy water” on the ones they liked.

Gone are speakers like Willie Brown, whose autocratic 14 1/2-year reign is considered the catalyst for California’s term-limits law. The state has had six House speakers in three years, and no end is in sight; no sooner are speakers elected than their time is up.

“The speaker has very little in the way of carrots or sticks,” said California political analyst Sherry Bebitch Jeffe of Claremont Graduate University.

Even the current speaker, a former labor leader and community organizer who had never held public office until 1994, calls the job “overwhelming.”

“I had nothing in my resume to prepare me for this,” said Antonio Villaraigosa, who opposes term limits while acknowledging he owes his position to them. Four months after becoming speaker, he chatted with his feet up on a gilded antique table--a newcomer already at home with the trappings of high office.

Inexperience can cut both ways, says Villaraigosa. For instance, he cited a school bond bill that had been stalemated for more than 12 years. As the new lawmakers butted heads over the complex legislation, its prospects seemed to get even slimmer. But in the end, it passed the Assembly--largely, Villaraigosa believes, because the new legislators had something their seniors lacked: the vigor to get it through.

“There was a willingness to solve it, but not an understanding of how,” he said.

Villaraigosa is also a symbol of another term-limits phenomenon: the accelerated rise of Hispanic political power. Since term limits passed in 1990, the number of Latino Assemblymen has gone from four to 14. California, which never had a Hispanic speaker before term limits, has now had two. It also has its first Hispanic Republican, likely to be joined soon by up to four more.

That means the Hispanic point of view comes through more strongly in debates about immigration and education. For example, legislators cite a recent lengthy discussion of the rights of elderly immigrants, a subject that would have generated little heat in earlier times.

Term limits also were meant to diversify legislatures, but the results so far are inconclusive.

The number of women and black legislators rose in California immediately after term limits, then fell in the next election. Maine now has its first female House speaker. But states like Michigan, where term limits are new, find many candidates are already politicians--from the other chamber or from local government.

Many in California complain that term limits have driven down the quality of legislation and debate. With new legislators sitting on and even running top committees, the right questions may not be asked and the wisdom of institutional memory may be lost.

“It’s a bit ridiculous to have people who have two years of experience handling an $83-billion budget,” said Sen. Mike Thompson, a Democrat from Northern California who is termed out this year.

The Legislature’s lawyers say they spend much more time working with lawmakers who don’t know the history of an issue or the process of writing bills. The winners, some say, are lobbyists and state bureaucrats, who can take advantage of the new legislators’ inexperience.

Kelly Rossman-McKinney, who does public relations for legislative issues in Lansing, welcomes legislators’ ignorance.

“I view it as a blessing,” she says, laughing. “It’s a huge opportunity to be first out of the gate to brief them on an issue.”

As for the bicycling Rep. Gilmer, his door-to-door hunt for votes proved futile. He lost last Tuesday’s primary.