Seeing How Term Limits Affect Our Government

Re “Birth of a Budget Impasse,” editorial, April 20: It’s about time that someone stated the obvious: term-limiting of elected officials should come from the ballot box, not from some thoughtless legal mandate.

The result of term limits is that the most experienced hands in Sacramento are lobbyists, not legislators. It means that we are destined to be sold special-interest schemes like energy deregulation again and again because no one in Sacramento will remember the “last time.” It means that the baby-splitters of both parties will continuously gridlock our government for the slightest perceived partisan political advantage. In a dozen short years, term limits have done a lifetime’s damage to California. It is time to abolish them before they ruin our state.

Christopher Plourde

Venice

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In your editorial you try to make the case, weak at best, for the elimination of term limits. Why would you want to ensure that incompetent, self-serving individuals find a lifetime of work serving their own interests -- at taxpayer expense? That type of individual is why we in California find ourselves in the financial mess we are now enjoying, even with term limits. It is not necessary to look any further than the Real Estate section of the same issue to find an excellent reason why the current limits may be too long. “Mortgage system reforms stalled” is the report of greedy, self-serving politicians, on the federal level, who will probably see to it that the public pays more than it should for mortgages. These people are our elected representatives who are sent, at our expense, to Washington to look out for our (the public’s) best interest.

That expectation, of course, is naive. The reality is that politicians tell us what we want to hear; give us just enough to keep us reasonably happy and then pursue their own agenda, which usually begins with “me.” Term limits should be extended to include our “buddies” in Washington. After all, even the president has term limits.

Clyde Hammett

Bellflower

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Your editorial blaming the California state budget mess on term limits totally missed a key point: that state leaders, including the governor and the state Legislature, have not taken responsible leadership roles in dealing with our state’s financial mess. It doesn’t matter whether a person is in office one term or 20 if he or she does not do the job. Posturing and delay, dealing with a multitude of silly little items while our state’s finances dwindle -- this is not leadership.

The Times should run a “front of the section” column every day about state government, ways to cut costs and improve service, and hold these public officials responsible to do their jobs. Instead, you let them off by blaming the voters for term limits. We don’t seem to have too short a term limit; perhaps it’s too long.

Don Dressler

Irvine