Term limits are a solution that cannot work, to a problem we do not have. Enacted by the voters in 1994, under prodding from the anti-government crowd, the law has yet to make much of a difference in Massachusetts politics. Indeed it will be several years into the next century before the term-limits law will do anything in particular–that is, if it survives that long. Quietly, for more than a year, the League of Women Voters has been challenging the law in state court. Lawyers expect the case to be fast-tracked to the Supreme Judicial Court, which could hear arguments as early as May.
Whatever the state’s top justices decide, though, will be almost beside the point. It is hardly worth the effort to repeal term limits, or even denounce them. Constitutional or not, the law is laughably misguided. It reduces the voter to saying, in effect: Stop me before I vote again.
All of which would be reason to just forget about it, except that the term-limits law has one immediate, damaging effect: It gives many people a sense that they have “done something” to clean up politics when, in fact, no such thing has happened. The rotten core of our politics remains campaign finance. That is the dirty secret in state politics, just as it is in national politics, and that is an issue worth doing something about.
Let’s look at the record. Specifically, let’s look at the results from the most recent election, and compare the present roster of public servants to the line-up of just nine years ago–which is the maximum period in one office contemplated by the term-limits law. Nine years ago, I was the State House bureau chief for The Associated Press, covering the governor, the Massachusetts Legislature, the courts, all the hot political races–in short, the whole scene. It was my job to know everyone who mattered, everyone who had any real power.
Guess what. They’re all gone, without any help from term limits.
Cast your mind back to late 1988, early 1989. You’ll recall that we were governed then by Michael Dukakis, Billy Bulger, George Keverian (This was two House Speakers ago–back before Charlie Flaherty!), and Ray Flynn. Tip O’Neill had recently retired. Where are they now? Let’s see….
O’Neill is dead, and Flaherty is politically deceased. Dukakis is in Purgatory, Flynn is in Limbo, and Bulger is in Heaven. In their stead, we have an all-new line-up of white males (diversity is an issue for another day) in each position. In other words, every single major office in the state has changed hands–all before the term limits law could limit their terms.
The governor today is a man who eight years ago had never won any elective office; in fact, his record of winning elections was so bad that in 1988 all he had to show for himself was winning three towns. Likewise, the Senate President today is a man who in 1988 had never held state office. The current House Speaker was a back-bencher in 1988.
Among the other offices, the same holds true. Look at the U.S. House delegation. In 1988, it included Atkins, Boland, Conte, Donnelly, Early, Mavroules and Studds–all gone. In the intervening years, two members–Blute and Torkildsen–have already cycled through and been replaced by even newer newcomers.
In the Legislature, it’s the same story. Of the 40 senators who smoked and joked their way through the 1988 session, only five remain (Berry, Keating, Melconian, Norton and Pines); today’s leaders in both parties were not even sitting in the chamber in 1988. In the House, out of 160 seats 120 have turned over since 1988. (I think: It’s hard to keep track of all the Creedons, Connollys, Whites, OBriens and Walshes.) Any more newcomers and it would look like Student Government in September.
Death, retirement, indictment, defeat, the lure of higher office–all take their toll and impose a natural rate of attrition on our politicians, making term limits unnecessary. Besides, I daresay that no politician makes career decisions based on such a law. They all believe that in 8 or 10 or 12 years they’ll be in the White House.
One goal of the law was to eliminate the kind of pol who just thinks about protecting his seat and spends all his time plotting how to get re-elected. Fine. But a politician like that is not, under the discipline of term limits, going to retire from politics and go invent a cure for baldness. He’s going to use his eight years to target a higher-paying, higher-ranking position and run for that. It would be no trouble at all for politicians to follow the classic career path from city council to state House to state Senate to U.S. House and spend 32 years or more in elective office without ever bumping up against a term limit.
And what about the few mossbacks on Beacon Hill? What about the Scibellis and the Ruanes and the DeFilippis? There are a handful of reps who come from “safe” districts. Are they threats to self-government? What makes a rep’s district “safe” anyway? Usually, it’s the fact that the people there like him. So where’s the harm? I thought the whole point was to let the people rule.
Not only is the term-limits law unnecessary, it is also a red herring. It is a non-issue that distracts us from the real issue, which is the money that fuels politics. After all, what protects incumbents from challenges is not their incumbency per se (since holding office can make you very unpopular), it’s the way they use their incumbency to raise the kind of money that immunizes them against challenges. In practice, the tremendous turnover we’ve seen is due to two driving forces: death and indictments. Those grim reapers create open seats, which lure lots of pols into races that only one of them can win. Otherwise, most professional politicians calculate that they can never raise enough money to unseat an unindicted incumbent.
The only place where we do not see a robust rate of turnover is in the U.S. Senate. The reason has to do with what economists call barriers to entry–the ante, if you will. As Shamie, Rappaport, Romney and Weld can testify, it’s expensive to run for the Senate. A Massachusetts Senate race appears to cost at least $6 million. In other words, a sitting senator must raise, on average, $1 million a year for each year of the term. That works out to $19,178 a week, week in and week out. Or, consider the cost of running for governor. The next statewide campaign, in 1998, will probably go to $10 million. Over the course of a four-year term, that works out to $2.5 million a year, or $48,076 a week.
All of which brings us back to our real problem: money. The record shows that there is ample turnover in politics, except at the upper reaches, where money matters the most. If we want fair and open government, let’s change the rules so that politicians do not have to spend all their waking hours hustling after other peoples’ money.
Actually, there is one group of political players that seems immune to the natural turnover of the democratic process. That is the group of lobbyists, activists and journalists who make up the state’s true political establishment–our permanent government. People like Barbara Anderson, Chip Ford and Howie Carr–the ones who cried loudest for term limits–are exactly the ones who are the most entrenched. Politicians come and go; they stay and stay. It seems odd that they don’t seem to care so much about getting the money out of politics as they do about getting the politicians out of politics. Maybe they don’t mind the money in politics.
There ought to be a law.
Contributing writer Christopher B. Daly is a free-lance journalist and a teacher in Boston University’s school of journalism.
