Courtesy Tulsa World
Today we are introducing Standpoint, a new feature that will appear occasionally in the Sunday Tulsa World Opinion section. We have asked several knowledgeable outside contributors to share their thoughts on a current event. In the inaugural Standpoint, the topic is legislative term limits, passed in 1990. Are they a good thing or a bad thing, and have they helped or hurt the state? Authors include Keith Gaddie, the incoming chairman of the University of Oklahoma Political Science Department; state Sen. Kyle Loveless, R-Oklahoma City; former two-term Gov. Frank Keating; Mike McCarville, political observer and creator of The McCarville Report; Ken Neal, retired editor of the Tulsa World Editorial Department, and Bill Shapard, a longtime political observer and pollster. We hope that you enjoy Standpoint and invite readers to weigh in on the topic of legislative term limits.
Frank Keating: New ideas made possible by new faces
Recently, Simon and Schuster published my fourth children’s book, a volume entitled “George,” telling and celebrating the life of our first president. Washington clearly was, as Henry Lee said in his eulogy to the father of our country, “First in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his countrymen.”
What isn’t universally known, however, is that he also established a stunning precedent —— a first for his time —— and that was that elective office is not for life. It is only temporary. And very temporary at that. The two- term presidential limit was Washington’s contribution to limited government, limited executive power and the avoidance of excess and arrogance in the office of chief executive.
Oklahoma limits its governor to two terms. It limits its legislators to 12 years total service in either or both houses of the Legislature. I served one term in the House and a portion of two terms in the state Senate, the only governor in history to serve in both houses.
Term limits exist to bar career elected officials. Term limits stand for the right and the obligation of all of us to serve. No one is indispensable to government. No one is essential to elective office. New ideas, new answers, new approaches are made possible by new faces. Term limits assure that elective office is not a sinecure. It is not a lifetime post and a one-way ticket to a cushioned retirement.
Some say that the best and brightest legislators are lost to the legislative process by a 12-year limit. I say that the answer is not to mourn the departure of the good but to insist on the elective service of the best. From both parties.
In Washington’s day, the talented, the leaders and the successful, served in our legislatures. We need that high mindedness today.
Better people in politics —— even for a short time — means a better and stronger society.
Frank Keating is former governor of Oklahoma serving from 1995-2003. Keating also served in both houses of the Oklahoma Legislature.
Bill Shapard: John Adams was right
I support term limits because getting to a citizen legislature is in the best interests of Oklahoma.
The concept of a citizen legislature is a founding principle of our Democratic republic. In 1776, John Adams said that a legislature “should be in miniature an exact portrait of the people at large. It should think, feel, reason and act like them.”
To me, anyone in Oklahoma who has made elective office a career is not an “exact portrait” of Oklahomans.
Over the years, I’ve heard two main arguments against term limits. The first is that elections already serve as term limits. In my opinion, anyone who truly believes this does not fully understand the power of incumbency in politics.
Opponents of term limits also claim there is a loss of institutional knowledge, but I reject this argument as well because it’s based on the premise that there are not enough citizens smart enough to serve in the Legislature. Every district in our state is filled with men and women bright enough to serve. To think otherwise is to believe that only a ruling class is capable of creating laws.
If there is any loss of institutional knowledge, then it certainly includes how to work the system for personal gain, which is a loss we should all support.
Term limits in Oklahoma, however, are not perfect and two changes, in my opinion, could improve them.
What newly elected legislators may lack in institutional knowledge should not be replaced with well- experienced lobbyists who, in most cases, are former legislators who now know all too well how to take advantage of green citizen-legislators.
Therefore, I would further strengthen term limits by barring former legislators from lobbying, one year for every year served as a citizen-legislator. If a legislator serves his full 12 years, then he or she should be barred from lobbying for 12 years. This should send a clear message: Thank you for your public service, but it’s time to return to private life and a profession away from 23rd and Lincoln.
Also, post-term-limit legislators are, on average, younger than those serving before term limits, and this must be addressed as well. Campaigning favors the young, and citizen legislators should be individuals with more developed life and work experiences acquired over the course of a life, not at the beginning of it.
The age to serve in the legislature either should be established or increased to an age where the citizen legislator won’t have his or her life and work experiences formed by public service, but will take their own life and work experiences to our Capitol.
If we are to truly achieve Founding Father John Adams’ ”exact portrait”, we must not only have term limits, but we need to continue to improve them.
Bill Shapard is the CEO of SoonerPoll.com and has served as the pollster for the Tulsa World since 2005.
Sen. Kyle Loveless: Term limits: Let’s find a balance
As I wrap up my second year of my first term in the Oklahoma State Senate, something has occurred to me —— we as a state don’t appreciate the true value of institutional knowledge. We don’t utilize the wisdom of those who have come before us, regardless of partisan control. Now that the GOP has a firm grip on the legislative branch, we should strive for good government for all Oklahomans.
As a beneficiary of term limits, and as an Oklahoman, the idea of someone spending the majority of his or her adult life as an elected official is not the wisdom and decision of the people of Oklahoma, and I do not believe we need to go back to those days.
However, the people decided years ago in favor of term limits, and I agree with that decision. I believe the intent of term limits can still be honored and established by expanding the 12-year limit and taking the power away from those not elected to office and putting it firmly into the hands of the people.
In years past, it took 12 years, on average, to become chairman of a committee. I am not suggesting that we return to the time when service is measured in decades, not years. However, the current system allows for agency heads, lobbyists, and government-relations executives to have more influence than originally was intended by the state’s Founders.
The people entrusted elected officials to be their eyes, ears and voice at the state Capitol. Abdicating that precious and hollowed responsibility to people, whose job is focused usually on one specific issue, not the will of the people, sometimes leads to bad policy.
The goal for limiting the number of years, is to prevent abuses of power and to get a fresh crop of elected officials, who will have new perspectives and ideas different than those who served previously. I’m not sure that 12 years is long enough to avoid leaning on lobbyists and agency heads, neither of whom was elected by the people.
Agency heads now know that they can wait out governors and (legislative committee) chairmen because if you blink they will be gone. If it were up to me, I would extend the term limit to 16 years or allow the 12 years to be non-consecutive, so people could come back if the people in their district want them to if they sit out a term.
I believe that the people of Oklahoma spoke loud and clear, and if we could extend term limits to Washington, D.C., we probably would do that as well. Keeping new ideas and personalities always is a good thing, and we should not be subject to some time frame.
Limiting the period that people can serve has led us to a new growth in conservative leadership, which is good for the state.
The goal should be good conservative policy for all Oklahomans, not arbitrary limits.
Sen. Kyle Loveless, a Republican, is the state senator representing District 45, which includes part of Oklahoma City.
Mike McCarville: The Coburn example
U.S. Sen. Tom Coburn once was quoted as saying, “What’s a question you would ask of a candidate for federal office that doesn’t normally get asked? Will you agree to impose your own term limits? And: Have you ever been in politics before? Because if you’ve ever been in politics, I don’t want to vote for you. If you have term limits, then you’re more likely to have people in office who are not motivated by a career in politics. They’re going to be more likely to serve time and then go back home.”
I’m with Sen. Coburn on this one.
The concept of citizen-servant is a good one, and Coburn is the proof. While the arguments against term limits carry some weight, in my 50-plus years in Oklahoma politics, the forced “retirement” of many is a good thing. Not always, but quite often. It serves to cleanse public bodies of old ideas, cronyism and officials making the same mistakes over and over. It increases the likelihood of fresh ideas, new blood, new dedication. It reduces the likelihood an elected official might find his or her post a lifetime career choice. It reduces the likelihood that getting re-elected becomes more important than good public policy.
Experience has shown that the result of term limits in the Legislature has been a crop of those with fresh faces, new ideas and different points of view. It also has produced a reduction in the “good ole boy” government of the past where alliances were built on decades of elective dominance. In many cases, it also has eliminated the not-so-subtle influencing of state personnel to help favored legislators in their campaigns.
Cynics say term limits are idealistic, simplistic, counterproductive and results in officials who can’t get anything done.
I can’t think of a better counter to those arguments than the limited service of Sen. Coburn.
Mike McCarville has spent more than 50 years reporting on, or being involved in, Oklahoma politics. He founded The McCarville Report in 1980; it is the longest-running state political blog in the nation. He was inducted into the Oklahoma Journalism Hall of Fame in 2013.
Ken Neal: Ultimate term limit is ballot box
Too often, Oklahoma is the first state to adopt a bad idea.
Term limits are a good example. Oklahoma was one of the first states to rush to term limits, fueled by dislike of Democrat Gene Stipe of McAlester who had been in the Legislature 42 years when voters adopted term limits in 1990.
At the time, Democrats dominated the Legislature, so Republicans were hot for term limits. But now that term limits have decimated a GOP Legislature or two, the GOP is not so sure about the limits.
Term limits sound good. After all, any citizen can serve, right? But as many freshman legislators have learned, being a good lawmaker is not easy. Most new legislators are stunned at the complexity of lawmaking. Sen. Stipe had many detractors, but they had to admit he knew more about the legislative process and the politics attendant than most anyone.
Term limits are a problem. Several studies, including one by the National Council of State Legislatures, make that clear. They have been repealed in at least four states and others work to lessen their effect. At least one state elects legislative leaders from the freshman class to provide as much experience as possible.
Term limits put urgency on lawmakers. Freshmen are pressured to make their mark. They hurry to introduce bills, and much of the legislative time is spent “reinventing the wheel.”
Legislative leaders don’t have the respect necessary to lead; when every one is in “urgent” mode, leadership advice is ignored. After all, even the “veterans” in term-limited legislatures don’t have much more experience than their fellows.
In Oklahoma, we see this kind of disruptive, “hurry up” effort in action. Needlessly repetitive bills are introduced, and given the dislike of federal government, inexperienced lawmakers pass laws that are certain to be struck down by the courts.
Lawmakers, for example, are on a campaign to “control” the state Supreme Court because the court had the audacity to knock down laws that violated the Oklahoma Constitution. Miffed lawmakers want to return the judiciary to the days of party control. One wants to impeach appeals judges because he doesn’t like a decision. No one, it seems, recalls what it was like when appeals judges were elected on partisan ballots.
One unintended result of term limits is that the executive branch, not to mention special interest lobbyists, more easily manipulates a rancorous, disorganized Legislature.
In some cases, term-limited legislators are less responsible to the people who elect them. For instance, once a legislator is elected to his last term and therefore will never be up for election, he can loaf on the job or even tell voters to go climb a tree.
Finally, the ultimate term limit is the election. Gene Stipe did not hold office due to kingly dictate. The people of his district returned him to office for 53 years. You don’t like your lawmaker? Vote against him or her.
Ironically, at the same election in which Oklahoma voters approved term limits, they re-elected legislators who had served 20 years or more.
Term limits add an element of confusion and lack of knowledge to the admittedly difficult lawmaking process.
Ken Neal is the retired editor of the Tulsa World Editorial Department.
Keith Gaddie: The electoral fence
We should run government like a business. In business, you don’t dismiss a highly qualified organizational leader simply because he or she had accrued a dozen years on the job.
This person has built up connections, expertise, and accumulated institutional knowledge. They are coming into their prime as someone who understands the tricks of the trade, of how to make things happen and get them done.
There is a perception fed to Americans by the media – especially radio and television – that politics is ridiculous, easy, and just anyone can do these jobs. Politics isn’t ridiculous. It isn’t easy. Politics is everything that isn’t a for-profit market transaction. It is the business of creating public goods, such as roads and clean water and national defense and safe schools. It tames bureaucracies and exploitative interest groups on the left and the right wings.
A government that throws out experience places itself at risk. It also creates incentives for politicians to not look out for the needs of the state, especially as they wind down their terms. Instead they look for post-legislative employment.
Often these new jobs are in the state government they often ran against. Or the former lawmaker finds a job with some special interest group seeking a particular tax break or selective benefits from government for their group. Almost to a person, you do not find these former lawmakers going to work to lobby government to make it smaller. There are some, but they are rare.
Term limits was about political control. Oklahoma’s term limits law was passed in a wave of anti-government sentiment. It was the only way for Republicans to otherwise dislodge locally popular Democratic lawmakers who stood in the way of an emerging Republican majority.
It worked. But the realignment of Oklahoma to a Republican majority would have happened in any event, and probably at about the same time. Other Southern states with similarly strong Democratic majorities in the early 1990s all went Republican between 2002 and 2006.
Most don’t have term limits, or if they do, they allow lawmakers to term out, sit out, and come back later. They still have to fight interest group politics, but they are able to retain expertise.
Sentencing politicians to limited terms strips away expertise that comes with seniority. It assures a politics where the most experienced players at the table are the bureaucrats and the lobbyists. They control the information. They control history.
On the people’s side of the table, at best there are a few bright lawmakers who are quick studies, and a situation in the hearing rooms and negotiations where people who are not electorally accountable have more information and therefore more power.
Will Rogers observed, “There are three kinds of men. The ones who learn by readin’. The few who learn by observation. The rest of them have to pee on the electric fence for themselves.”
Most lawmakers take time to learn, and we need to be able to put that learning to work for the people. Why throw away hard earned lessons over a 25-year-old political play?
Keith Gaddie is the incoming chairman of the Department of Political Science at the University of Oklahoma.”