Coming to terms

With the end of the 119th Maine Legislature comes another conclusion: The state’s experiment with term limits is turning out more legislators than would leave voluntarily, but is ushering in more chaos and the possibility of delay and increased bureaucratic influence.

In 1993, voters approved a term-limits law that prevented state senators and representatives from serving more than four consecutive two-year terms. This is the last year that long-serving legislators will be in office; after November, no legislator will have served more than four consecutive terms. House Speaker Steven Rowe of Portland and Senate President Mark Lawrence of Kittery both will depart after serving but a single term in their roles. House Assistant Minority Leader Richard Campbell of Holden, Senate Majority Leader Chellie Pingree of North Haven and Senate Minority Leader Jane Amero of Cape Elizabeth also will depart under term limited.

The Appropriations, Banking, Education, Health and Human Services, Labor, State and Local Government committees will each lose one chairman to term limits; term limits and a resignation will leave the Utilities committee without either its Senate or House chairmen, at the same time Maine embarks on electric deregulation.

The effects of term limits have already been felt: A record number of bills went through this session, many of them either tongue-in-cheek, by request (meaning the legislator is simply sending along a constituent’s wishes and won’t actively support the bill), or covering old ground that has been trampled plenty over the years. Experienced leadership might have been able to fend off bad ideas, marshal support for what needed to be done, counteract the influence of bureaucratic testimony and lobbying and show new legislators the ropes. They might also have spent more time on legislation for the long haul; term limits give them incentive to focus only on issues that can be addressed for the next couple of years.

But as the old guard moves out — many leaders are either running for Congress, or not running at all — there is little experience behind the new leaders and little hope that fresh legislators, who have already shown a general streak of independence and rebellion, can be organized into effective blocs.

There is, of course, some benefit to having lawmakers who refuse to merely accept the party’s position and who are willing to speak up for individuals not normally considered during the lawmaking process. But the state has learned in this experiment that there are trade-offs to empowering the inexperienced. Deadlines are more likely to be missed, the flow of bills rises and issues that should never have been brought take up valuable time. This is not a comment on current leadership, all of whom seem plenty competent. It is a reflection of an increasing number of legislators without the background needed for getting things done and the expanding role of leadership to help guide them through the process.

Even Gov. Angus King, who initially supported term limits and who is somewhat served by a House and Senate in chaos, says term limits have turned out to be a mistake.

The next session shall tell how much of a mistake. A thorough debate of term limits pros and cons is needed. And while the conflict of interest is obvious, lawmakers should consider whether the negative aspects of term limits still make them worth the original reasons for Maine’s support of them, if anyone has been around long enough to remember what those were.