Odds Of Success Slim For Term Limits

The region’s Republican senators want to amend the Constitution to limit senators and representatives to 12 years in office.

But even strong term limits supporters don’t expect success in a Senate vote scheduled Tuesday.

“It’s basically a foregone conclusion,’ said Paul Jacob, executive director of U.S. Term Limits. “That’s why there hasn’t been more media coverage before the vote.”

Supporters of term limits say incumbents find it too easy to get re-elected. They say term limits will end the influence of powerful career politicians.

“Nobody in Congress is unaware of the public support for term limits, they just have a conflict of interest. Term limits has done much better when the issue can go straight to the people,” Jacob said, pointing to the success of initiatives in Western states.

Washington and Idaho are among 23 states - 17 west of the Mississippi - that limited the terms their congressional delegations could serve.

Sen. Slade Gorton, R-Wash., favors an amendment because voters in Washington state support term limits, said press secretary Heidi Kelly.

Sens. Dirk Kempthorne and Larry Craig, both of Idaho, are among the 18 GOP co-sponsors of the term limits amendment. No Democrats are backing the amendment.

Craig co-sponsored an earlier amendment to limit representatives to six years, but the Senate Judiciary Committee last February increased the House limit to 12 years.

Jacob said a term limit measure that allows representatives to serve six terms is “watered down to the point of being useless.”

Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., will vote “no” because she thinks voters can use elections to change their elected officials. Spokesman Rex Carney noted that voters in Washington’s 5th District ousted former Speaker Tom Foley in 1994 without the help of term limits.

Rep. George Nethercutt, R-Wash., who defeated Foley, is sticking to his campaign pledge to serve no more than six years in the House.

The House approved 12-year limits in each chamber last March by a 227-204 vote, with Rep. Helen Chenoweth, R-Idaho, voting with Nethercutt in favor of the limits.

But the vote fell 61 votes short of a two-thirds majority required for a constitutional amendment, making term limits the only plank in the Republican “Contract with America” to fail in the House.

If the amendment passes the House and Senate with two-thirds majorities, it still would have to be ratified by 38 states.

Washington and Idaho are among the 21 states that limit the number of terms their state lawmakers can serve. The Supreme Court ruling did not overturn those limits.

, DataTimes