Term limits have shifted power away from the Legislature to lobbyists and the executive branch, ensured that lawmakers repeatedly debate the same issues and reduced the power of rural areas. Voters will have a chance to partially remedy the situation by lengthening the time state lawmakers can serve under a referendum question approved by legislators last week that the governor is also expected to support.

The referendum question asks if voters want to increase to six the number of terms lawmakers can serve in Augusta. The limit is now four terms or eight years. The extension, if approved by voters, would not apply to legislators currently serving their fourth term (that includes Sen. John Martin, the former House Speaker whom many blame for the term limits movement in Maine).

Legislative term limits were strongly approved by voters in 1993, although like this year, it was an off-year election and turnout was low. The term-limits campaign, funded largely by the late philanthropist Elizabeth Noyes, said limiting the time people could serve would improve government. In the more than a decade since they were imposed, we have learned this is not the case.

After studying the effect of term limits on the Maine Legislature, three political scientists, two from the University of Maine and one from the University of South Dakota, found they had many detrimental effects. These range from committee chairs who don’t know how to run meetings to a more than tripling of the number of bills that have only one supporting vote in committee, resulting in a floor debate and other administrative procedures for a bill that will ultimately die. They also found that the number of women in the State House dropped after term limits were enacted and that many House members simply moved to the Senate when their eight years was up.

Worse, lawmakers report having to rely more on legislative staff members and lobbyists for a sense of history and procedure.

And, they have kept rural Maine from using the legislative seniority system to offset urban centers’ advantage in numbers.

In 2005, the Governance Performance Project faulted the state’s eight-year term limits for not allowing lawmakers enough time to gain in-depth understanding of specific subject areas, which worsened the state’s financial situation. Marge Kilkelly, who served 16 years in the Maine Legislature and now works for the Council of State Governments, said term limits begin with the erroneous assumption that experience is a bad thing. “Term limits create a trainee board of directors for a multibillion-dollar corporation.”

Although repealing term limits would be better, the referendum question gives voters a chance to improve a failed experiment.