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[JDPriestly]

38. We have term limits in California. There is a bad side.

You get some machine politicians who work for the maximum number of years in the legislature or the city council or some elected position and then find themselves middle-aged and unemployed when their term limit is up.

They start looking for the next political position that will pay them a living. You get people in jobs they don't have their hearts in and never really wanted. And people who know what they are doing in, say, the legislature, and have just gotten to the point that they have the seniority to understand the issues and work well for their constituents are termed out and have to leave. The constituents then have to start over with a new representative who has to learn the job from scratch.

And in the final years and months in office, the elected official is actually running for or looking for his next job. The term limit often appears right when the official is about to educate his kids, send them to college, etc.

Term limits have the advantage of bringing fresh ideas to a legislature or other elected position. But they give real meaning to the word "hack" in "party hack." You get a lot of tired and sour, used and bitter, people in office.

Politicians and teachers -- you don't want too much turnover any more than you want too little. It causes cynicism and causes leaders to think too much about getting their next job.

And also like teaching, very few people can just walk off the street and get elected. Politics is a profession. Young people start out working for experienced politicians. Political leaders nowadays train to run for office. They get to understand how to organize a campaign, how to get elected, what the issues are, the constituents and other politicians in their area.

Term limits don't really bring in fresh faces. Now campaign finance reform would, but it is probably pretty unconstitutional. Publicly funded campaigns would, but there are also problems with that because you probably can't limit money purportedly spent on issues or campaigns -- not if you want to protect free speech, etc.