Legislators’ Terms: Voters Have Their Limits

Your editorial in support of Proposition 45 (“Easing the Term Limits Box,” Feb. 17) fails to provide even one specific instance of harm to the state caused by term limits. If term limits are the disaster you claim them to be, giving one factual cause-effect example shouldn’t be that difficult.

But the real story of term limits, one I have yet to see addressed anywhere, is my inability as a voter to have any impact on the career of a state-level politician outside of my voting district, regardless of the impact he or she may have on me.

When [former Assembly Speaker] Willie Brown was in office he had a great impact on policies that affected us in Los Angeles, but we had no ability to influence either his thinking or his tenure through the ballot box. As long as he provided the pork in his district, he was assured reelection. And the longer he remained in office the more pork-power he accumulated and the more dictatorial he became. Term limits changed that. For the better.

Proposition 45 will effectively abolish term limits because there is absolutely no doubt that Brown and others like him will be able to gather the required signatures to run for office again. A better alternative to Proposition 45 would be to allow incumbents to run for a term beyond that specified by term limits, but make them run for that term on a statewide basis. Then we can all have a voice.

Steve Switzer

Redondo Beach

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Shame on The Times for endorsing Proposition 45. Thankfully, your editorial clarified that big business and powerful unions are behind the measure. Now it appears that we can add The Times to that illustrious list.

Tony Clifton

Fullerton