AUGUSTA – Nervous but knowing smiles appeared on the faces of veteran lawmakers John Martin and Elizabeth Mitchell when a freshman senator asked for a round of applause after the testimony of a community college professor.

Any outward display of support, particularly during the budget process, is a faux pas in Augusta, as the committee’s chairman later advised after a smattering of uncomfortable clapping.

Sens. Martin and Mitchell, who quietly exchanged glances during the awkward ovation, didn’t need reminding.

The two Democrats, both former House speakers once displaced by term limits, are back – as powerful as ever, some say – along with a host of other veterans including Sens. Bill Diamond, D-Windham, Barry Hobbins, D-Biddeford, and Peter Mills, R-Cornville.

The applause incident, while ultimately inconsequential, is perhaps more symbolic of the impact of term limits on the Legislature.

A recent study dubbed the Maine Legislature “underexperienced and overworked,” with term limits a major hurdle to its ability to make long-range financial plans. A new book by three present and former University of Maine professors finds the limits have increased the power of the executive branch and have bogged down the lawmaking process.

The two studies have renewed debate over the state’s term limits law, the architects of which still rally to its defense amid the familiar complaints.

“Our goal was to shake up the system,” said Ted O’Meara, a Republican consultant to the original “No More Than 4” term limits drive. “It’s been one of Maine’s best recycling programs.”

It has been 12 years since voters overwhelmingly – 68 percent to be exact – approved the limits, which prevent lawmakers from serving more than four two-year terms without sitting out a term or switching chambers.

The restriction has never proved popular in Augusta, where this session – as with sessions before – the Legislature will consider separate bills to lengthen or abolish them. One bill, which would extend the limits to 12 years, is scheduled for a public hearing Monday.

Mitchell, who upon her 2004 election to the Senate immediately assumed the post of education committee chairwoman, is sponsoring one of the bills, a repeal try. Mitchell cited the increased power of the governor’s office and the Legislature’s unhealthy reliance on administration policy experts.

“If we weaken the Legislature, we weaken the people’s voice,” said Mitchell, of Vassalboro. “Longevity does not grant wisdom, but at the same time, experience helps.”

Maine is one of 15 states with legislative term limits. Maine’s law, like those of eight other states, allows lawmakers to return after a hiatus. In six states, there are lifetime limits on legislative service.

If Maine were to abolish them, it could be politically perilous, but it would not be the first state to do so.

In 2002, Idaho lawmakers were the first to repeal their limits, passed in 1994 with 59 percent of the vote. Voters narrowly upheld the repeal, after a pro-term limits group put the matter back on the ballot.

A year later, the Utah legislature also repealed its term limits.

Since 1995, only one state – Nebraska – has imposed legislative term limits, doing so in 2000.

In 1993, there was little doubt about the term limits referendum’s chances at the Maine polls.

The campaign, funded almost exclusively by philanthropist Betty Noyce, garnered the most signatures in history – a formidable 87,000.

The signature count gave the issue not only a spot on the ballot, but also a sense of political urgency, especially amid a lengthy government shutdown blamed on the era’s entrenched and powerful politicians including then Speaker of the House John Martin.

“I do think one of the goals was to break down the sense of entitlement some people had,” said Rick Barton, the Democratic strategist behind the original drive. “And it has opened things up.”

Too much, say critics, dissatisfied with the revolving door of House speakers, Senate presidents and party leaders since the limits took effect in 1996.

Sen. Peter Mills, a sponsor of one bill to extend the limits to 12 years, said the restrictions have forced out leaders in their prime – particularly in the House, where experience as a whole is lacking compared to that of the “old warhorses” who have returned to the Senate.

“There’s not enough seasoning in the people that rise to the top,” said Mills, the only lawmaker who, after being “termed out” of the Senate, spent a term in the House before returning to the Senate in 2004.

Even O’Meara conceded that the lack of continuity in leadership has been a drawback to the law.

But Barton, a former head of the Maine Democratic Party, gave little credence to the experience argument.

“You have expertise. They’re not a bunch of rubes walking around,” Barton said. “There just aren’t too many people down there for more than a year who go around saying, ‘I just don’t get it.'”

Getting it and being an effective lawmaker are two different things, say critics like Mills, who nevertheless expressed doubts about a total repeal. He cited the volatility of the issue and the likely emergence of vocal term limits supporters.

“There are people who are fanatics about this issue,” said Mills, citing the national group U.S. Term Limits, which recently sent him a letter warning him not to try to repeal the law. “They’re angry people.”