News14.com Poll: Kennedy's death brings up term limit topic

From News 14 Carolina

As the nation prepares to say goodbye to Sen. Ted Kennedy, his nearly 50-year stay in the U.S. Senate has voters on news14.com discussing the issue of term limits for elected individuals.

When asked if Kennedy’s Senate longevity will ever be matched by future elected officials, 78 percent of news14.com poll voters answered ‘no’. The reasoning for many of those voters was that term limits are needed to ensure America’s leaders don’t become too ingrained in their powerful positions.

“Career politicians have no place in governance,” argued poll voter, Angry Citizen. “Beyond two terms, they're so intermingled with Corporate America that they forget why they're in Government service. The idea behind that is to benefit the country, not yourself.”

Added poll voter, L: “This kind of longevity in the US Senate just serves to foster individual power.”

As dictated in Article I, Section 3 of the U.S. Constitution, senators serve six-year terms. There is no limit on the number of terms they serve. Members of the House of Representatives, noted in Article I, Section I, serve two-year terms, of which there is also no limit. Other elected offices, such as that of president, have had term limits established.

The 22nd amendment to the Constitution established term limits for the presidential office.

“Being in the Senate and Congress was never meant to be a career,” said Don Helms on facebook.com/news14. “There's a reason we have term limits for other elected officials and those same limits should apply to all.”

Those still wanting to have a say in the discussion can do so by visiting facebook.com/news14 and scrolling down to the discussion.

Having Your Say:

Ted Kennedy spent nearly 50 years in the Senate. Do you think that type of longevity will be matched by future elected officials?

Yes: 16%

No: 78%

Not Sure: 6%

*results rounded to nearest whole number

Voting information gathered from a poll taken Aug. 26 on news14.com. As an unscientific, online poll which any reader can vote in multiple times, the results can not be taken as an official response of North Carolina residents. The comments left on news14.com and Facebook.com/news14, however, provide an arena for citizens to debate each topic among themselves.

Term Limits Are Debated in Colombia

From the New York Times

BOGOTÁ, Colombia (Agence France-Presse) — Legislators debated sharply on Tuesday about a referendum that would change the Constitution to allow President Álvaro Uribe to run for a third term.

The proposal is part of a trend among Latin American leaders who have sought to use referendums to undercut constitutional term limits and prolong their time in power.

Voters in Venezuela and Bolivia have approved the lifting of term limits to extend incumbents’ stays in office.

Efforts by President Manuel Zelaya of Honduras to remove term limits were the cause of a military coup in the Central American nation in June.

In Colombia in 2006, Mr. Uribe, a conservative, became the first president to be consecutively re-elected in more than a century after his political supporters gained approval of a constitutional amendment that removed an existing one-term limit for the presidency and created a two-term limit.

To achieve passage of the new referendum that would permit Mr. Uribe to run for a third term, his supporters would have to gain the backing of at least 84 lawmakers. Before the debate, Interior Minister Fabio Valencia said he was confident of at least 91 votes from the governing coalition.

If lawmakers approve the measure, it will then go to the constitutional court for review.

President Obama and the Roman Catholic Church have questioned Mr. Uribe’s bid for another term as president.

Mr. Uribe has said that he is not seeking to extend power, but that he simply wants to provide continuity for his administration’s crackdown on the leftist FARC guerrillas.

He has not yet said conclusively that he will run in the presidential election next year, if the term limit is altered.

The president remains popular, despite extrajudicial killings by the army and the wiretapping of rivals.

Apathy, no term limits will be our downfall

From App.com

In response to the Aug. 11 letter questioning why the writer's congressmen didn't schedule meetings on health care: It will make no difference. Reps. Frank Pallone Jr. and Rush Holt, and Sens. Frank Lautenberg and Robert Menendez, all New Jersey Democrats, with a combined 74 years in office, represent themselves and the Democratic Party only. I went on Holt's Web site and perused his pictures with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. What do you think the chances are of Holt voting against her health bill? Not happening. Same for the other Pelosi puppets.

Unfortunately for New Jersey voters, we deserve what we get. New Jersey politicians have absolute power for two reasons — no term limits in Congress or the state Legislature and 2 million of 4 million registered voters in New Jersey who don't vote. Of the 2 million who do, 800,000 are government workers. Your state, county, municipal and school employees mostly vote for Democrats to protect their unions. And they all vote. In their position, I would do the same.

This means 67 percent of the others must vote Republican to get a Democrat out of Congress or the Senate. The politicians don't care what we say. Their power is absolute and they know it.

I've sold insurance for the last 25 years. If the Democrats' health care plan passes, it will kill the health insurance industry and millions more jobs. Congress already underpays doctors and hospitals by 10 percent to 30 percent of cost in Medicare and Medicaid. They will do the same with this plan.

Most people will do nothing, and the proposed Democratic plan may bankrupt us.

David A. Koch

SHREWSBURY

Vail won't put council terms on ballot

From Vail Daily

VAIL, Colorado — Vail's Town Council terms, which some find a bit confusing, won't be changed by voters this year.

The Town Council has decided not to put a question on the November ballot that would have eliminated two-year council terms.

The Town Charter currently specifies the top three finishers in Vail's municipal elections receive four-year terms, while the fourth-highest finisher receives a two-year term. The intent is to provide for a turnover of the council majority every two years. The Colorado Constitution defines terms as four years and states that elected officials may not serve more than two consecutive four-year terms in office.

The discrepancy had resulted in the town's request for a legal opinion which advised that town council members who are approaching term limits would be eligible to serve four-year terms if re-elected.

Also, the current charter limits council members to eight consecutive years on the council, which can cause complications if a member gets voted to a four-year term and a two-year term. Once a member hits the term limit, they must wait four years before running again.

The town's attorney has said that only one other community in Colorado has two-year terms.

In reviewing the proposal, council members expressed mixed opinions as to whether the ballot should specify a term limit of three consecutive terms, where the elected official would serve anywhere from six to 12 years depending on election outcomes, versus two consecutive terms, where years of service would be anywhere from four to eight years.

Still, this November's election in Vail will be an active one. Four of the seven seats on council are up for election.

Term limits in Congress

From StarGazette.com

With all due respect for the office of U.S. senator or representative, I do believe that they have forgotten, neglected and ignored their constituents.

I have been following the bailouts, stimulus packages, pork, cap and trade, and health care. I see power and greed, but I do not see America or capitalism or selfless leadership.

Enough is enough. Do they not hear the very American citizens who put them in Washington, and whose tax dollars they so frivolously spend?

Change is needed! And I now believe it starts with term limits for all of Congress. Four years is enough time to be a statesman rather than a politician. I say get the job done (or not), and then come back to the districts to work with the rest of us.

Enough is enough!

Gail Mitchell

Addison

For a Bloomberg Rival, an Unexpected Boost

From the New York Times

Just about every day, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg’s re-election campaign unveils the latest in what has become a near-encyclopedia of endorsements, from obscure ethnic newspapers to prominent Democrats who live outside of New York.

But it is the ones that he has not gotten of late that are making his bid for a third-term, if far from imperiled, maybe something less than a slam-dunk.

On Thursday, the man regarded as Mr. Bloomberg’s likely Democratic opponent in November, City Comptroller William C. Thompson Jr., scored what was arguably his most significant endorsement yet, winning the fervent backing of District Council 37, the largest union of city government workers. It was surprising, too, because Mr. Bloomberg, a Democrat-turned-Republican-turned-independent who is now running as a Republican, had won the backing of DC 37 and most other unions in 2005, when he crushed Fernando Ferrer.

A few weeks ago, Mr. Thompson surprised the political establishment when he picked up the support of the Working Families Party, a coalition of unions known for its industrious get-out-the-vote operation. The party had stayed neutral in 2005, in what was widely seen as a coup for the mayor.

In both instances, the groups indicated that they had soured on the mayor because of what they felt were an imperfect feel for the city’s working class and his imperious move to rip up the city’s term-limits laws in order to run for another term.

“He changed,” Lillian Roberts, executive director of DC 37, said at a news conference on Thursday with Mr. Thompson.

“Thompson is in a better position — that doesn’t mean he’s in a good position — but he’s in a better position,” said Kenneth Sherrill, a political science professor at Hunter College. “This gives him a certain level of credibility that will encourage people to take a serious look at him, whereas a month ago it might have been Bill Thompson — who?”

Mr. Bloomberg still has tremendous advantages and has to be viewed as the strong favorite. He is the incumbent. He is willing to spend as much of his own money — $100 million or more — as he thinks is necessary. And his approval ratings have stayed quite high, above 50 percent, when other politicians around the country are suffering badly.

“I don’t think it’s a real cause of concern for the mayor unless it’s the start of a pattern,” said Dan Gerstein, a Democratic political consultant, who is not involved in the race but supports the mayor.

“The biggest variable in this so far is Thompson,” Mr. Gerstein said. “They’ve given people who are on the fence no compelling reason to jump. If Bill Thompson can show a compelling rationale to fire Bloomberg and hire him, then maybe things change. But there would have to be a game-changing event, or a radical political skills upgrade on the part of the challenger, to really make this a serious race.”

Mr. Thompson’s next challenge is to win the endorsements of the last two major unions with the clout to mobilize members, and perhaps influence voters: the United Federation of Teachers, which stayed neutral in 2005, and 1199 S.E.I.U.United Healthcare Workers East, which backed Mr. Ferrer.

He also hopes to tap into what political analysts sense is a more energized liberal wing of the Democratic party.

In 2005, Mr. Bloomberg managed to sway many Democrats who were impressed by his post-9/11 leadership in rebuilding New York, his against-the-grain push to ban smoking from restaurants and his insistence on raising property taxes and even income taxes on the wealthy.

But this time, there is a greater wellspring of discontent, Mr. Sherrill and others said; one colorful example is a new anti-Bloomberg newsletter called Fed Up New Yorkers.

“In ’05, there was no Bloomberg fatigue, and he was generally trusted by voters,” said Dan Cantor, executive director of the Working Families Party. “Now, there’s a lot of fatigue, and a lingering distrust because of the self-serving move on term limits and a society-wide view that Wall Street played us all for suckers.

“A lot of voters just don’t relate to him, and compared to ’05 he doesn’t look so invincible. He still has the money, but sometimes rich guys don’t win.”

For its part, the Bloomberg campaign dismissed suggestions that Mr. Thompson was gaining momentum, noting its continuing success in collecting endorsements (Colin L. Powell’s being a recent one), relying on social networking tools (Mr. Bloomberg is using Twitter this week) and articulating policies for a third term (improving community colleges was the theme on Thursday).

“We continue to take every opportunity to talk about the mayor’s record of honest, competent leadership that’s independent of the special interests,” said Bradley Tusk, Mr. Bloomberg’s campaign manager. “We’re working extremely hard, and we’re just getting started.”

If nothing else, Mr. Thompson seems much more engaged than he was just a month ago. When asked about Mr. Thompson’s mood, Eddy Castell, his campaign manager, said: “He is certainly growing more upbeat every single day. He’s ready for the next couple of months.”

Dem chairman: Heineman should respect term limits

From the Journal Star

Democratic State Party Chairman Vic Covalt has his own ideas about how to fill the seat that will be vacated with the resignation of Omaha Sen. Mike Friend.

On Wednesday, Covalt called on Gov. Dave Heineman to respect term limits by appointing a senator for District 10 who would be willing to serve only one year.

That would leave an open seat for the 2010 election.

"The governor needs to respect the will of the people on voting up term limits and not place an individual in the office who is looking for further political gain," Covalt said.

If the person appointed to the seat is just a friend of the governor looking to score political favor in the upcoming election, then this is a clear indication that "Heineman has a complete and utter disregard for the law of the land," he said.

The governor said at a news conference to announce Friend's appointment as the first director of the state Office of Violence Prevention that he is unlikely to appoint a replacement for District 10 who isn't going to run the next year.

Vince Powers, who serves on the state Democratic Party's executive committee, said appointing someone who wants to run for the office would give that person an advantage in fund raising and incumbency.

"It allows lobbyists to give the person a lot of money," he said.

The idea for term limits is that every eight years there would be an open seat, Powers said.

Term limits passed in 2000, with 56 percent of voters in favor of Ballot Initiative 415.

It limits state senators to two terms in the Legislature - eight years in most cases, six years in cases where senators have served more than half of one term. Senators could run again after sitting out a term.

This is the third senator Heineman has been able to appoint, Powers said, and it seems a pattern could be developing of senators quitting before their second terms expire.

Heineman appointed Tony Fulton for Lincoln's District 29 in November 2006 when Mike Foley left the Legislature two years early to become state auditor. He appointed Scott Lautenbaugh to Omaha's District 18 in 2007 to replace Mick Mines, who resigned in his second term.

Friend resigned with about 16 months left in his second four-year term.

District 10 and District 22, in northeast Nebraska, are two seats subject to term limits after next year.

District 10's current registration is 8,448 Republicans, 9,464 Democrats and 4,813 nonpartisans, according to Covalt.

Reach JoAnne Young at 473-7228 or jyoung@journalstar.com.

Selectmen consider term limits for town committees

From Wicked Local Plymouth

PLYMOUTH — When residents volunteer and are appointed to a board or committee, should their service have a shelf life?

Selectmen are divided on the subject, but a majority appear to favor term limits for appointed committee members.

The discussion prompted a proposed amendment to the town’s charter that would clearly define the selectmen’s authority to remove appointed committee and board members.

Monday, Acting Town Manager Melissa Arrighi said she’s working on the language of an amendment to be submitted to the fall Town Meeting.

Selectmen Chairman Dicky Quintal broached the subject of term limits last week in response to repeated complaints he says he’s received regarding some veteran committee members.

While Quintal didn’t reveal the targets of the complaints, he said it’s clear that committee appointments should carry term limits. One veteran committee member has racked up 50 complaints, according to Quintal.

But Selectman David Malaguti says setting term limits and removong a committee member are two separate issues.

Airport Commissioner Walter Morrison has served wonderfully on the Airport Commission for decades, Malaguti said, and this veteran’s wisdom and knowledge would be sorely missed should selectmen institute term limits.

“Walter was instrumental in getting the airport self-sufficient,” Malaguti said. “Don’t make this decision frivolously. I think you’re sacrificing a lot of good people. If they’re doing a good job, they should stay on the committee. I will vote against term limits.”

Precinct 7 Rep. Ken Buechs noted that many committees have empty seats because not enough Plymouth residents have the time or are willing to spend their time volunteering on town boards.

“I really don’t believe you’d be doing the community any good by setting term limits on the volunteers in this community,” he added.

Selectman Bill Hallisey noted there were many impressive applicants for Morrison’s seat, when selectmen recently voted to reappoint him to the commission. Giving someone else a chance is important, Hallisey added, particularly when there are so many qualified candidates.

Selectman Butch Machado also seemed to lean toward Quintal’s approach.

The Masons are successful partly because of term limits for members, Machado said.

“You need to generate new ideas and new enthusiasm,” he added.

Instituting term limits isn’t really the solution to a problem with a committee member who has been the subject of many complaints, Selectman John Mahoney said.

Malaguti and Mahoney both noted that selectmen can remove appointed committee members and officials who don’t fulfill their duties.

“Term limits are the easy way out,” Malaguti added. “Everything should be dealt with on an individual basis.”

But it’s not all that easy to remove an appointed official, according to Arrighi. There has to be just cause for removal and a public hearing, she added, as well as documentation supporting the action, such as written complaints. Oftentimes complaints center around personalities, she said, and personal disputes are problematic when it comes to rationally weighing a person’s performance on a board or committee.

“I think what I am going to do for the fall, as long as I can get to it on time, is to submit a charter requirement that the board provide appointed committee and board members with the opportunity for a hearing prior to removal,” Arrighi said. “That way, it clearly says in the charter that there is a removal process. When there isn’t clearly a process or reference in the charter, then you have to look to the law to remove a committee member.”

Amending the charter to include this removal provision would clearly give selectmen appointing and removal authority, so appointed committee and board members couldn’t argue there’s no law giving selectmen that power, she added.

Sam Yoon seeks term limits on mayor’s seat

from Boston Herald

Mayoral challenger and city councilor Sam Yoon yesterday called for limiting Boston mayors to two four-year terms, making the pitch on the day incumbent Thomas M. Menino became the longest serving mayor in Hub history.

“If 8 years is good enough for the president of the United States, it has got to be good enough for the mayor of Boston,” said Yoon, pledging to serve just two terms.

A Yoon campaign statement stated that 10 presidents and five popes served over the same time Boston has had three mayors - actually, there have been nine presidents and four popes.

According to Yoon, the city could amend its charter with the Legislature’s approval to add term limits or voters could express their will through a nonbinding ballot question. Limits could also be imposed by approval of two-thirds of the City Council and the mayor.

Menino, who is seeking a record fifth term, pledged in 1993 he’d serve just two terms. Yesterday, he eclipsed Kevin H. White as the longest-serving Boston mayor. “The mayor’s position on term limits is that every four years he has to go before the residents of the city and seek their support again,” said Menino spokeswoman Dot Joyce.

Term limits are also backed by South End businessman and mayoral candidate Kevin McCrea. City Councilor and mayoral candidate Michael Flaherty prefers letting voters decide. Asked if he would commit to step aside after two terms, Flaherty said, “I don’t want to put the cart before the horse.

Viewpoint: Time for term limits in Congress

from South Washington County Bullitin

In case you’ve been in a media-free zone for the summer, here’s where we are with health care reform. The Democrats run the White House and the Congress. They have 60 percent of the Senate and 58 percent of the House. A lot of new Democrats, including the president, were elected on the promise of not just tweaking, but overhauling the civilized world’s worst health care “system” that costs more than any other country’s system yet leaves out 47 million Americans and doesn’t make us healthier for all the money we spend. Now the difference between Democrats and Republicans is supposed to be that the first believe government is a tool to help ordinary folks achieve the American Dream, and the second believe it is a tool to limit the American Dream to those who already live it. Democrats gave us Medicare to prevent senior citizens from losing their dignity and their savings and going bankrupt due to hospital and doctor bills. Republicans gave us handouts for rich corporations and unaffordable tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires, like the guy who made United Health Care so successful by selling worthless Medicare Advantage insurance plans that did little for policyholders but lots for company shareholders. With that history in mind, Americans expect Democrats to fix health care for the rest of us the way they enacted Medicare for all seniors, preventing anyone from going bankrupt due to hospital and doctor bills that, increasingly, private insurance refuses to cover. Americans expect Republicans to try and keep the revenue dream stream intact for millionaire surgical specialists and billionaire drug and insurance profiteers.

So why is the man most gumming up the works a Democratic senator? Finance Committee chair Max Baucus wants his Republican friends to support reform they are hard-wired to fight, so he is holding up progress and making his bill less consumer-friendly in a futile attempt to earn GOP votes. This is the kind of vain, people-be-damned thinking that permeates the Senate, where Baucus has been for 30 years. With the help of $3 million from the health care industry he is supposed to regulate, last year he persuaded Montana’s voters to make it 36.

History provides a clue to Baucus’s behavior. Seems we’ve had problems before with U.S. senators being beholden to special interests. America’s founding fathers crafted our Constitution to give each state two senators selected from their respective state’s legislatures. But people got fed up with the influence games that special interests flush with cash played upon the selection of legislators who would then select senators preferred by those special interests. People started insisting on more of a role in picking their senators, and in 1913, the 17th amendment to the U.S. Constitution changed the election of U.S. senators to popular vote.

Term limits is another popular idea whose time may have come if senators fail to heed the American people’s demand for the choice of a public insurance plan. The usual response to the idea of term limits is “elections limit terms.” That sounds democratic. But in the age of $50 million elections to the U.S. Senate and the $600 million cost of just Barack Obama’s run for the presidency, dollars trump democracy. At those price tags, as Paul Wellstone noted, we’re not holding elections, we’re holding auctions. A 78 percent re-election rate for sitting senators — 90 percent for someone like Baucus with five terms — illustrates the near-futility of challenging such entrenchment. And while redrawing the boundaries of congressional districts every 10 years in response to census changes helps keep U.S. Representatives on their toes, state boundaries, the ones that matter to senators, never change.

Elected officials don’t like term-limits, but every voter I’ve asked loves the idea. Thirty-six states already limit gubernatorial terms, 15 limit state legislative terms. There is no hue and cry to repeal the 22nd Amendment’s limit on presidential terms, ratified in 1951 after FDR’s three re-elections threatened to shatter George Washington’s enduring precedent of self-imposed two terms.

Thomas Jefferson favored limits, “to prevent every danger which might arise to American freedom by continuing too long in office.” The welfare of the American people is now endangered just as Jefferson envisioned, and it’s time to heed his warning.

Eileen Weber is a nurse, attorney and former Minnesota House of Representatives candidate from Denmark Township who lived in Cottage Grove for 15 years. She can be reached at weber058@umn.edu.

Polito wants to limit legislators to six terms

from The Metro-West Daily

The Supreme Judicial Court shot down a voter attempt to impose legislative term limits in 1997, but state Rep. Karyn Polito recently revived the idea by proposing capping State House service at six terms.

Polito, a Shrewsbury Republican, said she filed the bill just days after former Speaker of the House Sal DiMasi was indicted in June on fraud charges.

Under Polito's bill, legislators could serve no more than 12 years and would be unable to renew their limit by leaving and coming back or by switching chambers.

The former Shrewsbury selectman, serving her fifth term in the House, said she filed the bill to create turnover in the Legislature, which she said would bring in fresh ideas and restore residents' faith in state government in the wake of recent ethics scandals.

"(DiMasi) is the third straight speaker to be indicted," she said. "We need to right the ship. We need to restore the public's confidence in the Massachusetts Legislature."

State voters approved an eight-year term limit for legislators and congressmen and a 12-year term limit for US senators in 1993, but the Supreme Judicial Court ruled the law was unconstitutional in 1997.

"We're in a different time than when it was passed in 1993," Polito said. "You can't always call on the same loyal legislators."

About 40 percent of the 200 state senators and representatives on Beacon Hill have served for more than 12 years, Polito said.

"Twelve years is about right to accomplish a meaningful career in the Legislature," she said.

Fifteen states currently impose term limits on state legislators. Polito said she modeled her bill after California, which imposes a six-year limit in the state assembly and an eight-year limit in the state senate.

In California, the number of people elected to serve in the state legislature increased by about 25 percent following the passage of the bill in 1990 - 369 people served from 1990 to 2008, compared to 296 during the prior 18-year period before the term limit measure passed.

Polito said term limits would also improve racial diversity, noting that Latino representation in California has risen from 5 percent to 23 percent since the passage of term limits, and would bring new perspectives to the Legislature.

"It's something that has proven to work in other places," she said.

Because Polito filed the bill after the legislative session's initial deadline for filing legislation, the bill was referred to the Rules Committee, where it awaits action.

To become law, Polito's bill must pass both chambers before the governor considers it. The full Legislature would then meet to amend the constitution, with successful votes required at two different sessions. Residents would then weigh in at the polls. Polito is aiming for November 2012.

"The status quo is not working," she said. "We need some ideas out there that are going to right the ship."

Fumo is example of why we need term limits

from Pennlive.com

by Ben Tylenda
Wednesday August 05, 2009, 1:13 AM

I want to take this opportunity to express my greatest outrage at the prison sentence for former state Sen. Vincent Fumo. U. S. District Judge Ronald Buckwalter gave Fumo 55 months of prison time for 137 counts of conviction for political corruption and theft of millions of dollars from the citizens of Pennsylvania.

What did Fumo give to Judge Buckwalter? $100,000? $200,000? $500,000 to Buckwalter's "favorite charity"? How much? The last time Fumo was convicted by a jury, of paying "ghost employees" on his payroll, the conviction was overturned and vacated by a federal judge. Is this deja vu all over again?

Hopefully state or federal prosecutors will investigate this sentence. Ex-Sen. Vincent Fumo -- poster child for term limits.

BEN TYLENDA, Fairview Twp.