Coalition Opposes Term Limits Ballot Measure Labeled ‘A Bad Idea’

Idahoans shouldn’t lose their best leaders because of term limits, a new coalition declared Thursday as it kicked off a campaign against a term limits ballot measure.

“This issue cuts across all party and philosophical lines,” said Steve Ahrens, an executive committee member for No On Term Limits.

“Idahoans recognize a bad idea when they see one. Artificial term limits deny voters the right to choose who they have in office. That is something we must change.”

Ahrens also is president of the Idaho Association of Commerce and Industry. On Thursday, he said the anti-term limits group includes both Republicans and Democrats, chambers of commerce, local government and corporations.

The new coalition is targeting its campaign against a nonbinding advisory measure that will be on November’s ballot, asking whether voters want to keep the term limits for state and local offices they imposed by initiative in 1994.

The original initiative also targeted members of Congress, but that part was invalidated by the U.S. Supreme Court.

Ahrens said the group believes the limits violate voters’ rights to determine who they want in office, and create problems for efficiency in government by tossing out anyone with experience. “We don’t do that in business, and we shouldn’t do it in government either,” he said.

Donna Weaver, chairwoman of the Hayden Lake-based Citizens for Term Limits campaign, criticized the new coalition.

“Basically these are either paid lobbyists in Boise or they are people who employ paid lobbyists on their behalf, who’ve gotten their way for a long time at the expense of ordinary taxpayers,” she said. “Term limits allows ordinary people to have more influence than the paid lobbyists and special interests.”

Weaver’s group has placed an initiative on this fall’s ballot that would allow candidates for Congress to take a term limits pledge and then have their compliance with the pledge noted on the ballot.

Ahrens said his group isn’t working against that measure, which he said he thought would be overturned by the courts.

His coalition includes the Idaho Association of Counties and Association of Idaho Cities; Union Pacific; J.R. Simplot Co.; US West; chambers of commerce in Boise, Twin Falls and Lewiston; Idaho School Boards Association; Idaho Retailers Association and others.

“We believe that Idahoans will recognize that term limits really places small towns in jeopardy,” Ahrens said. “What are rural Idaho communities going to do when they lose their sheriff, a longtime member of the community? Or their school board members? What about their county commissioners or their mayor?”

The coalition noted that Idaho voters change about one-quarter if the Legislature each election. More than 80 percent of the House and Senate have turned over in the past decade. Up to 43 percent of the county commissioners have changed in each of the past four election cycles.

Weaver countered those figures with her own, noting that 94 percent of legislators seeking re-election have won in the past decade, and many incumbent legislators this year are running unopposed. When term limits kick in shortly after the turn of the century, those races will be more competitive, she said.

But Ahrens noted that if term limits had been in effect earlier, many prominent Idaho leaders couldn’t have served as they did. Among the list are former Gov. Robert Smylie, Secretary of State Pete Cenarrusa, longtime North Idaho legislators including Jim Stoicheff, Marguerite McLaughlin and Bruce Sweeney, and retired Owyhee County Sheriff Tim Nettleton.

Staff writer Betsy Z. Russell contributed to this report.