Government: How Term Limits Failed

Twenty years after voters approved the nation's most restrictive term-limits law, and elected Wilson California's 36th governor, a new study by the nonpartisan, nonprofit Center for Governmental Studies (CGS) concludes the fundamental goals of Proposition 140 have not been met.

For starters, most of those arriving in Sacramento are already politicians, not coming from private industry, but from taxpayer-funded, elected or appointed local government jobs.

Far from returning to the farm, these alleged aspiring sons of Cincinnatus are now less likely to do so ....

More troubling, for those who want term limits to oppose special interests, the impact has been the opposite: to increase lobbyist influence over the policy process.

Inexperienced new legislators rely on lobbyists for policy information when they are unable to obtain information from other members or their staffs, the CGS found, citing a National Conference of State Legislatures study with similar conclusions: Term limits have increased the power of lobbyists over the California Legislature.

For more, see How Term Limits Failed by Jerry Roberts, July 28, 2011 at Santa Barbara Independent.