AUGUSTA – The Maine Senate killed legislation to ease the state’s term-limits law Thursday, voting 19-15 to scrap further consideration.

The Senate action came one week after the House of Representatives rejected an amendment to restrict lawmakers to 12 rather than eight years.

Maine’s initiated law, which took effect in 1996 after being enacted by referendum in 1993, limits lawmakers to four consecutive two-year terms in either chamber.

The nation’s first term limit laws were passed by voters in 1990 in California, Colorado and Oklahoma. Eighteen other states followed, but courts threw out term limits in Massachusetts,

Oregon, Washington and Wyoming, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.