This 2014 article was reprinted from the U.S. Term Limits website.
by Nick Tomboulides
In the 1990s, politicians were at a loss over how to handle citizens’ impassioned pleas for term limits. They didn’t want to lose their jobs, but they also didn’t want to swim against the current of public opinion. This resulted in the development of several dubious talking points intended to undermine the arguments of term limits supporters.
Their most familiar refrain is, “we have term limits; they’re called elections.” It’s been used so many times that it has become the go-to slogan for legislators hoping to protect their own careers.
Those within our movement have always known why this argument is bunk, but new data out on the 2014 Election further exposes the sorry state of electoral competition in America. According to a report from the National Institute on Money in State Politics, 36 percent of all state legislative races in 2014 had only one candidate to choose from.
That means a sizable chunk of the American electorate couldn’t use elections to throw out their incumbent lawmaker, even if every single person in those districts wanted it to happen. For these voters, “elections are term limits” rings hollow at best and anti-democratic at worst. The 15 states with legislative term limits don’t have this problem, because open seat races and regular turnover are a built-in part of the process.
The researchers also found that states with term limits had a much smaller percentage of uncontested races, which allows their voters more choice and competition at the ballot box. Georgia, a state without term limits, was the worst offender at 80 percent of races having just one candidate. Conversely, the term-limited Michigan legislature didn’t have a single race go uncontested.
While this data helps shatter a common myth about term limits, it’s only indicating what we already know: as legislators’ tenure increases, so too does their ability to keep away quality challengers. The deterrence effect of incumbency creates a vicious cycle of uncompetitive races, which can only be remedied by regular rotation in office.
Americans don’t support term limits because we’ve never heard of elections. We do so because we want healthy elections with real choices in which citizens can meaningfully participate both as voters and candidates. We’ve seen how far the system has strayed from our Founders’ vision of rotation in office and competitive elections and we want to correct that.
Nick Tomboulides is the Executive Director of U.S. Term Limits.