Term limits repeal supporters think this could be the year

AUGUSTA – Members of the Legislature’s Legal and Veterans Affairs Committee are scrutinizing more than a half-dozen bills that would alter Maine’s legislative term limits law, but one proposal may actually make it to the governor’s desk if Sen. Ethan Strimling has his way.

“This has become an issue where people on both sides of the aisle have recognized that it’s time to move on,” said the Portland Democrat. “We have tried this experiment, it has had some strengths, but it has had many more weaknesses.”

Strimling has picked up significant bipartisan support for LD 572, a measure that would repeal the law barring state legislators from remaining in office longer than four consecutive two-year terms. During a public hearing on the bill Wednesday, Strimling said he would favor continuing term limits as they now stand for those in legislative leadership positions, committee chairmen and constitutional officers. At the suggestion of the committee, the state senator said he would not oppose a friendly amendment requiring Mainers to approve the proposed repeal at the ballot box in a statewide referendum.

Sen. Ken Gagnon, D-Waterville and Senate chairman of the committee, acknowledged that bills proposing the extension or elimination of term limits have surfaced with each new legislative session for nearly a decade. Lawmakers invariably have backed off from enacting such legislation that was enthusiastically embraced by the voters in 1993.

But change is in the air, according to Gagnon.

“Well I think if there’s going to be a year for it, this will be the year – although I suppose that’s been said before,” Gagnon said. “But I think that maybe by pushing this off into the future so that it may not become effective until 2012, or something, would be persuasive. … I think you’re going to see a strong term limits bill emerge from the committee process, but of course, that will be the easy part.”

In 1993, Mainers voted 159,785 to 76,732 in favor of the current law. The decision came on the heels of a 1991 state shutdown resulting from entrenched partisan politics in the State House over workers’ compensation costs and the 1992 “ballotgate” scandal. An ensuing investigation of that incident culminated in ballot-tampering convictions against a key aide to then-House Speaker John L. Martin, D-Eagle Lake, who served 19 years in the post.

Convinced that Maine’s system offered too much power to incumbents and encouraged legislators to make a career out of elective office, proponents of term limits began a citizen-initiated referendum to successfully enact the new law. But in recent years, the law has had its critics.

Opponents claim that four terms are insufficient to prepare freshmen legislators for key leadership roles. They also maintain that term limits erode the Legislature’s institutional memory, provide a greater advantage for the governor and increase the influence of lobbyists.

Sens. Debra D. Plowman, R-Hampden, and Dana Dow, R-Waldoboro, and Rep. Kim Rosen, R-Bucksport, have joined several prominent Democrats in supporting repeal of term limits. Plowman, a former four-term House member now in her first term as a senator, said she has never been a proponent of the law. Remarking on the high level of inexperience demonstrated by so many new lawmakers that have been elected since 1993, Plowman said there is also a need for continuity and institutional memory at the State House.

“My feeling has been that we always had term limits – every two years the voters have the ability to vote someone out or in to that office,” she said. “People actually have more choices without term limits.”