Our View: Nix on term-limits idea

Sen. Steve Daines, R-Mont., started his Senate career off exactly the wrong way last week when he signed on to the idea of term limits for the U.S. House and Senate.

Term limits have been tried and failed in Montana, and we see no reason to extend the mistake to Washington.

Under Daines’ plan, voters would be allowed to re-elect a senator once, but would be prohibited from sending a senator to Washington a third term.

House members could be re-elected six times, but if voters want to put them in office for a seventh term, they are out of luck.

Such a law would have a devastating impact on Montana over the years.

Wouldn’t it have been awful for Montana and the United States if such a law was in effect during the during the long tenure of Sen. Mike Mansfield, whose illustrious Senate career lasted more than three decades.

Some benefits may have resulted from the term-limits law Montanans imposed on themselves, but they are far outweighed by the disadvantages.

The average age of state lawmakers has gone down, and the voice of younger Montanans is heard in the Legislature a lot more.

Daines’ argument is that people should not get elected just to become career politicians. Instead, he said, term limits would result in more fresh faces in office.

In Helena. many Senators who have termed out have simply move over to the House.

This happened most recently with State Sen. Jeff Essman who was elected to the House after 10 years in the Senate.

No fresh faces here, but it seems to us that if the people of Billings were pleased with Essman’s service and years of experience, they ought to have been able to re-elect him to the Senate.

If Daines is interested in seeing fresh faces, there are many less drastic things he can do:

He can eliminate many of the advantages incumbents have going into elections. He can introduce legislation that would scale back interest groups from dumping money into campaigns of the same-old pols.

If challengers are given a leg up in challenging incumbents, we would have some of the benefits Daines promises under term limits. But he wouldn’t deprive people their right to elect the candidates they want.

P.S.: Clip out and save the news stories on Daines’ term-limits proposal. See if he is still for term limits in 12 years.