Since this column is supposed to be about third party politics, most of you are probably thinking I'd be in favor of term limits. The conventional wisdom is that the power of incumbency works against third party candidates, therefore, if you force incumbents out after a set period of time, there will be more opportunities for third party challengers to get heard and elected. And pigs might fly.
The problem with that wisdom is that term limits aren't a cure for a faulty electoral system. They're simply a band-aid to cover up one of the symptoms. Bad reform, reform that doesn't get to the heart of the systemic problem, is worse than no reform at all. It lets you feel that you've done something, and fixed a problem, when you haven't done a damn thing. It is not simply incumbent candidates that are entrenched, but incumbent parties, and incumbent money.
The type of electoral reform that is needed has to do with the financing of campaigns, the way districts are created, and the number of representatives per district. But, as I said, this month's topic is about term limits. I'll get to these other ideas in future months. (One I've already written about is IRV, check it out).
My main problem with term limits is that they throw away the good representatives with the bad. Yes, I'll admit that there may be some good ones. More importantly, their constituents may think that they're good.
People always have the ability to vote out their own representative, if they no longer feel represented. Term limits are a way for you to vote out somebody else's representative.
It is my firm belief, and I'm not alone in this, that California's term limits law was aimed at only one man. Many people outside of San Francisco were tired of the reign of Assembly Speaker Willie Brown. Willie had turned that position into the second most powerful seat in the state, behind only the Governor. And man, was he ever secure in that seat.
