Talking to some folks recently about term limits for South Dakota legislators, I have seen certain themes arise.
1. Term limits strengthens the executive branch at the expense of the legislative branch. Because the administrators in the executive are usually "long timers" they have all the information and history at their disposal. Legislators are not around long enough to build that kind of memory. Therefore the legislature relies heavily on the executive branch officials to provide information.
2. Term limits empower interest groups. This is true for the same reasons as above. Lobbyists often have information the legislators themselves do not have.
3. Term limits make long term planning difficult. Executive branch officials get frustrated because a term limited legislature, driven by the election cycle, demands immediate results from programs that have long term goals. The legislators often do not see beyond their eight years in the legislature, while the state government needs to have ten and twenty year plans. A good example of this is investment in research by universities. A research program in the sciences, such as is likely to occur at the DUSEL site, may bear no fruit for ten or fifteen years, but the investment must take place now. A term limited legislature is not set up for that kind of long range planning.
4. Term limits make for committee chairs and party leadership who by definition are not experienced. This does not make for quality leadership. Legislators have told me that it takes two or three terms just to get a sound grasp of what is going on in state government. But by that point they are almost out the door. Those who are ambitious for leadership must begin their climb early in their legislative career before they have a good grasp on the job, forsaking immersion in policy and process for politics.
Recent Comments