Lud Ashley made a small fortune after he was defeated for Congress. He made much more money than he ever could have from his Congressional salary. How, you may ask?

Lud had served on, and been the Chair of, the House Banking Committee for many years before his defeat. He was hired by the banking industry to be a lobbyist!!!

There are no term limits in Congress.

I understand your concerns about lifelong elected officials. I prefer those who want to become lifelong elected officials to the system we have at the state and local levels now because of term limits. Currently, the real power of stae and local government is in the hands of lifelong unelected legislative aides and unelected lobbyists for special interests. How’s that working out?

However secure elected officials feel they are, any elected official can be voted out of office. Incumbency does not guarantee re-election. Just ask Toledo’s last two mayors! I’m old enough to remember when no one thought that Thomas Ludlow “Lud” Ashley would ever lose his seat in Congess. And Lud was beaten by a totally unknown Ed Webber, who, himself, served only one term!

There will always be power brokers. Do we want those with power to be the elected officials over whom voters can exercise some control? Or do we want the power brokers to be those we cannot control at all: legislative aides and lobbyists?

In this post, I haven’t even touched upon the fact that many elected officials do their jobs really well! Why should we, as voters, not be able to keep someone in office who is doing an exceptional job? I just don’t get it?

Terminate term limits!

End them now!

In the Ohio General Assembly, no one may serve in either the House of Representatives or the Senate for more than 8 consecutive years. Former State Senator Linda Furney was first elected before term limits. She was dismayed when term limits became law. She often said that she really started to learn her job as a state legislator around 5-6 years into the job. Furney stated that it was sad to remove a state legislator via artificial term limits just when they were getting to know how to get things done.

Removing experienced legislators leaves a void — a power vacuum. Who fills that power vacuum? The answer is twofold. One group is those who make up the aides to legislators. These aides tend to move from one legislator to another as new people replace former members of the Ohio General Assembly. The other group empowered by term limits is everbody’s favorite group of people — lobbyists. Since legislators are term limited, most legislators lack experience. They turn to experienced staff and lobbyists from groups who support them for expertise.

I guess this is just what the geniuses who devised term limits were after. Take power away from elected officials who are directly responsoble to the voters, and put that power into appointed staffers and lobbyists for the already powerful special interests. Brilliant!!

I think we have beaten this issue into the ground for now, and still we have the problem of whether McNamara will serve the post he sought and was elected resoundingly to complete.

In part because the political party system is designed to not allow those within your own party to be challenged. I wouldn’t mind seeing that change, it’s similar to the philosophy I have in believing primaries within the party are good for us as opposed to the party mentality of squelching a primary opponent from the same party.

I was dismayed at how few people even heard of the Apportionment Board or even realized how much power whichever party holds that majority has on influencing electoral outcomes. That’s why I completely understand those who oppose term limits and I agree with them in theory but I also understand how term limits do create more “new blood” than leaving it up to voters.

Although incumbency does equal power, and it certainly can perpetuate marginal elected performance (case in point: more than a few of our current city council, which takes us back to why we need McNamara to serve there), from time to time the voters rise up. The 1980 election comes to mind, and I think in some ways, the 2009 Toledo municipal election may turn out to be the same kind of moment. At these moments voters’ weariness with the insiders and careerists overcomes incumbency and party.

It seems to me that we have seen too many high performing electeds “termed out” to justify continuing our current system of term limits. And, I am willing to trust that voters (yes, even Toledo voters) will rally to assert themselves when they see too much insider or party influence. (It is arguable that Wilkowski’s closeness with the LCDP cost him against a lifelong democrat running as an independent.)

I for one am willing to trust that our elections themselves represent the best form of term limits. And I believe that voters are especially sensitive to and upset with the political machinations that term limits encourage. Proponents of term limits in recent decades were mostly in favor of limiting government in general, not improving government’s performance. Their voices would never be raised in praise of high performers who have maintained the confidence of their constituents over time. Although it’s cliche, I think we can quickly get agreement that term limiting Franklin Roosevelt during the war would have been very bad indeed.