Batt Backs Away From Term-Limts Law, May Seek Its Repeal Despite Past Support, He Now Says Law Is ‘Probably A Mistake’

Despite the overwhelming support from Idaho voters, Gov. Phil Batt said on Tuesday that he now has serious reservations about the state’s term-limits law and may eventually call for its repeal.

“I’ve kind of come full circle on that,” the governor told some 300 participants in the annual Boys State conference in Boise.

Batt acknowledged that he signed the original petition that placed the sweeping initiative on the 1994 ballot, but he said that was before he realized that not only did it apply to Congress and state offices but struck all the way down to the school district level.

And the recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling that voided stateimposed restrictions on congressional service may well have been the final straw, he said.

“Now that the Supreme Court has ruled we can’t impose term limits on Congress, where most of the abuses were, I’ve about concluded that we hardly need it,” the governor said in response to a question from one of the Boys State delegates. “It is probably a mistake.”

But he stopped short of proposing immediate repeal, saying he wanted to wait “to see how she plays out.”

Under the initiative that passed with 60 percent of the vote last fall:

U.S. senators can serve only 12 years in the previous 23.

Congressman six years in the previous 11.

Statewide, legislative, city and county officials other than commissioners eight years in the previous 15.

County commissioners and school board members six years in the previous 11.

The clock in the service of incumbents did not begin ticking until Jan. 1 so the impact of the restrictions will not be initially felt until the 2000 election.

The state imposed a limit of two four-year terms on the governors office about 40 years ago but repealed it before it had any impact.

Critics of the 1994 initiative had unsuccessfully warned during last year’s campaign that the courts would throw out the congressional term limits, which is what sparked the widespread support for restrictions despite the lack of longevity among the state’s congressional delegation.

And they said the result would be only restrictions on state and local offices that were either unnecessary or potentially disruptive because of problems many small communities already having in getting people to serve on city councils and school boards.