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  Across Country, New Challenges to Term Limits
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ContributorArmyDem 
Last EditedArmyDem  Sep 10, 2008 07:52pm
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MediaNewspaper - New York Times
News DateWednesday, September 10, 2008 01:00:00 AM UTC0:0
DescriptionBy DAVID W. CHEN and MICHAEL BARBARO
Published: September 9, 2008

A decade after communities around the country adopted term limits to force entrenched politicians from office, at least two dozen local governments are suffering from a case of buyer’s remorse, with legislative bodies from New York City to Tacoma, Wash., trying to overturn or tweak the laws.

The campaigns against term limits, should they succeed, would drastically change the process by which millions of Americans elect a variety of their leaders — and how much power those leaders can amass once in office.

The elected leaders, some of whom supported term limits when they were imposed, argue that the limits severely hamper government and leave the officials little time to figure out the mechanics of their office. That forces them to gravitate toward small-bore projects that can be done quickly, rather than anything visionary that would take years to achieve.

In what could be called the second-term itch, they are pushing to revise the laws so they can serve another term (New York City and Rowlett, Tex.) or to repeal them so they can seek re-election indefinitely (State College, Pa., and Daytona Beach Shores, Fla.).

“It has been an unmitigated disaster for the city,” said Phil Hardberger, the departing mayor of San Antonio, who supports a November referendum to lengthen term limits to four two-year terms from two.

“The learning curve of how city government works and how to get things done is steep, but when you keep putting people in, and throwing them out, there is very little accountability,” he added. “We do a lot of churning here, but we don’t produce a lot of butter.”

The term limits movement swept across the country in the early 1990s at a moment of intense frustration with American politics. In Congress, Republicans like Newt Gingrich made the limits a central theme of their Contract With America, and it soon trickled down to local governments.
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