(This week’s civic education and engagement column from Danville’s The Republican newspaper.)
Given that I was elected to my former role six times and served 23 years, you’d probably assume I’m not a fan of term limits — and you’d be right.
If that makes you angry, I’m pretty confident that you’re frustrated with the way you see government (not) working, you’re convinced that most elected officials serve primarily out of self-interest, and you think it’s obvious they stop learning and thinking once elected.
You’re happy to support that dynamic young candidate this time around. You put a big sign in your yard and share campaign posts until your social media friends start putting you on pause. Congratulations, your candidate won and has been sworn in. But when the next election arrives and that candidate is now a seasoned incumbent, do you no longer support them and believe we need to vote for someone new to replace them?
I’ll disagree with the assumptions the pro-limits crowd makes, but I’m basing that largely on an assumption of my own: their push for term limits suggests they underestimate just how much knowledge and experience effective governing requires. (And if you ask whether government officials are compensated fairly for their time and effort, they’ll also claim those officials are overpaid, though they really have no idea what’s involved and the actual pay rates.)
My reason for resisting term limits has nothing to do with a desire to hang on to the reins of power as long as possible. It’s all about knowledge. Although I’d long been an active and involved resident and regular school board meeting attendee, when I was first elected, my mentor Dave Mansfield pulled me aside and said it would take a full year for me to find my feet and a full term before I even started to understand how everything worked. He was exactly right.
The reality is that government at all levels is complex. That post you read on Facebook offering a common-sense solution to some problem glosses over all the complexities, not the least of which are the laws dictating what local officials can and cannot do. The assumption that people get elected and stop caring or learning is wrong. I was still learning details about the job by the start of my sixth term, and continued to be focused on finding better ways to do things. If we churn through elected officials too quickly, we lose something that’s critically important: the knowledge they’ve accumulated and the judgment that grows from it.
One of the best arguments against term limits is one of Hendricks County’s own state legislators, Jeff Thompson, who heads the House Ways & Means Committee (“ways and means” is government-speak for “money”). Nobody in Indiana understands the budget and subtopics like the school funding formula better than Jeff. Suppose we limited Indiana House members to two terms (four years) of service. Even the most dedicated new legislator would never be able to accumulate the degree of knowledge and practical experience Jeff brings to his role.
The appeal of term limits is understandable. It’s a simple solution to a frustrating problem. But government rarely lends itself to simple solutions. The better you understand how government really works and why, the less likely you’ll be taken in by bumper-sticker “solutions” like term limits.