NWA EDITORIAL: Against Issue 2

In mostly conservative Arkansas, isn't it funny that lawmakers want to liberalize one aspect of government?

What aspect? How long they can keep their legislative posts.

Arkansas voters way back in 1992 approved Amendment 73, which established serious term limits -- three two-year terms in the state House of Representatives and two four-year terms in the state Senate.

Pretty much ever since, lawmakers have chafed at the limitations their fellow citizens placed on them. In this 2020 general election is their latest effort to extend the length of time they can serve in the Legislature.

One could certainly argue that every two years Arkansans have the ability to serve up term limits -- that is, with their votes, they can boot anyone from public office anytime they want. But incumbency is a powerful thing and it's generally true that once elected, the odds are a lawmaker will be re-elected if he or she decides to pursue the office again.

This proposal is the latest exercise by the Legislature to attempt to sneak in their own preferences for term limits, i.e., giving themselves many more years to stay in office. Probably to their chagrin, they've got to get voter permission to make the change.

So they gave it the suspicious little ballot title of the "Arkansas Term Limits Amendment" when it in fact loosens the state's term limits. Today, a lawmaker can serve a maximum of 16 years in either the House or the Senate, or some combination of the two. That's a lifetime limit.

Under Issue 2, if it's approved, no lifetime limit would apply. Instead, lawmakers could serve up to 12 years, then after a four-year break, could run for office again, resetting the 12-year clock. Theoretically, for example, if some enterprising 18-year-old got elected and served until he was 30 and stuck with the pattern outlined in the amendment, he would be eligible again at 34 for a new 12 years. Then again at 50 for another 12 years. Then, in this admittedly unlikely theory, he might go again at age 66 and serve until the ripe age of 78. Then, who knows, it might be time to run for president.

However unlikely it might be that Arkansas gets its own version of a Strom Thurmond (48 years in the U.S. Senate), the point is the change from 16 years to potentially 20, 30 or 40 years is a major shift. We just can't imagine that most Arkansans consider those term limits.

The reality is lawmakers put this measure on the ballot at least partly because they were concerned a more restrictive version of term limits would be on the ballot, by means of citizen initiative. This is their way of effectively getting rid of term limits without getting rid of them.

If Arkansans want to adjust term limits, we suggest this is not the measure they should use to do so.

Let's keep the state's existing term limits. Vote against Issue 2.