There is a recurring temptation in American politics to wreak vengeance on one's adversaries by overhauling the political institutions that they dominate. What usually results from this ill-considered radical surgery is that the very people who scheduled the operations end up in the recovery room. Franklin D. Roosevelt's plan to expand the Supreme Court in 1937 to dilute the votes of conservatives resulted in the creation of an opposing political coalition that lived on after the controversy to plague every subsequent Democratic President. The Republicans in 1951 wanted to ensure that there would never be another F.D.R., so they pushed through the 22nd Amendment limiting presidents to two terms. The first President to come under the restriction was Dwight D. Eisenhower, a Republican who might very well have won a third term. The latest institutional patients to be wheeled into the shock-trauma unit are the state legislatures. The quack therapy being performed on them is the imposition of limits on the number of terms that state lawmakers can serve. The first cut took place on Sept. 18, when Oklahoma voters endorsed overwhelmingly a ballot initiative limiting state lawmakers to 12 years' service. By itself, the term limitation in Oklahoma might be written off as a cranky act of vengeance in a state not renowned as a political trend-setter, but similar measures will be voted on in November in California and Colorado. Eager for straws in the wind in an otherwise trendless political year, some journalists have seen in the Oklahoma vote a backlash against incumbents, a manifestation of public alienation and an ominous sign to the Democrats, the party that holds the largest number of legislative seats. The Oklahoma referendum is none of these. It is, rather, the kind of minor political tempest that gets highlighted briefly by the media, is copied in a few places and then disappears. It is Republicans, naturally enough, who seem to be the most enthusiastic puffers of term limitation, since they have the most to gain, at least in the short term, from an indiscriminate clean-out of the nation's deliberative bodies. What makes term limitation such a singularly inappropriate tool is the almost total lack of connection between the fancied sins of the lawmakers and the discipline proposed. The very weakness and vulnerability to corruption that have often plagued state legislatures usually result from the amateurism of lawmakers -- the quality that term-limitation backers now assert as a virtue. Where state legislators are underpaid, have no professional staffs and meet rarely, they usually come under the sway of full-time governors, executive-branch bureaucrats and highly paid lobbyists. Indeed, the goal of legislative reformers for the past 50 years has been more professionalism in the state assemblies, not less. By turning out the legislators every 12 years -- or even worse, every six years -- you pretty much guarantee that those who are elected won't have much of a stake in their jobs. They will use them as temporary hitching posts on their way to other offices without term limitations. Not every state lawmaker has his eye on a seat in the U.S. Senate or House of Representatives. But it's a safe bet that more people will be using state seats to groom for higher office if they know that the law will force them out soon. Lobbyists, of course, will rejoice. Their influence over these legislative birds of passage will grow because they will be guaranteed a perennial crop of callow and ignorant lawmakers. One thing that legislators now have going for them is that they can become conversant with public issues and so challenge, if they care to, the self-serving propaganda of the special interests. Celebrating, along with the lobbyists, will be the legislative staffs whose tenure would be unaffected. These unelected officials are permanent and beyond the reach of voters, while the very people who are in some measure accountable will be hustled out of office. Ultimately, what the term limit amounts to is an indictment of citizenship. It is an admission that the voters are civic imbeciles who cannot discriminate between bad lawmakers and good ones. Where surgical strikes are needed to eliminate the incompetent or corrupt, the term limitation uses carpet bombing in the hope that in the resulting carnage, some of the guilty will suffer along with the innocent. At the most basic level, term limitation is just flat-out wrongheaded and illogical: To throw everybody out when all you want to do is throw out the rascals is like burning down your house in order to get rid of the rats.
Several states are considering term-limit restrictions for state lawmakers. Ross K. Baker, a political science professor at Rutgers University, says this is illogical. There is a lack of connection between the fancied sins of the lawmakers and the discipline proposed. A weakness of state legislatures often results from the amateurism of the lawmakers, a trait now seen as a virtue. Lobbyists and unelected legislative staff would benefit. They are permanent and outside the accountability of voters. If what reformers want is to throw out the rascals, these measures are more like burning down your house to get rid of the rats.