{"id":6851,"date":"2016-06-28T07:00:49","date_gmt":"2016-06-28T11:00:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/?p=6851"},"modified":"2016-06-27T18:52:38","modified_gmt":"2016-06-27T22:52:38","slug":"why-term-limits-will-probably-pass","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/?p=6851","title":{"rendered":"Why Term Limits Will Probably Pass"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Adam Pagnucco.<\/em><\/p>\n

Montgomery County political heckler Robin Ficker, who has tormented politicians and voters alike for decades, is on the verge of getting a charter amendment calling for term limits for county officials<\/a> \u00a0on the ballot.\u00a0 Ficker\u2019s previous term limits amendments failed by 8 points in 2000<\/a> and 4 points in 2004<\/a>.\u00a0 But Ficker, whose energy and combativeness have not declined with age, is trying again.<\/p>\n

And this time the heckler just might get the last laugh.<\/p>\n

Many things have changed over the last twelve years, and all of them favor the passage of term limits.\u00a0 Consider the following.<\/p>\n

1. \u00a0The Giant Tax Hike<\/strong><\/p>\n

I have written in great detail about the county\u2019s Giant Tax Hike, but look at it in simple terms.\u00a0 Imagine a public gathering of county residents at a restaurant, a festival, a park or any other public space.\u00a0 Then give them three options from which to pick.\u00a0 First, they could have a nine percent hike in property taxes that would be spread throughout the county government.\u00a0 (That is what the County Council passed.)\u00a0 Second, they could have a tax hike of about half that size with the proceeds going towards education alone.\u00a0 (We laid out how to do that in a prior post<\/a>.)\u00a0 Or third, they could have no tax hike.\u00a0 Which option do you think they would pick?\u00a0 Which one do you think would they be LEAST likely to pick?<\/p>\n

Many voters will go to the polls with twin sets of two words on their minds \u2013 \u201ctax hike\u201d and \u201cterm limits\u201d \u2013 and for a lot of them, they go together.\u00a0 That\u2019s what Ficker is counting on and by maximizing the tax hike, the County Council played right into his hands.<\/p>\n

2. \u00a0Declining Local Media Coverage<\/strong><\/p>\n

We spent a lot of time discussing the near disappearance of local media coverage in our Politics<\/a> After<\/a> the Gazette<\/a> series<\/a>.\u00a0 The result of this is that people know a lot less about what their elected officials do than they did twelve years ago.\u00a0 Back then, the Post<\/em> had multiple reporters covering county government and it competed vigorously with the Gazette<\/em> and a daily, the Montgomery Journal<\/em>, both of which are gone.\u00a0 Now, there are basically two people responsible for local news here: the Post\u2019s Bill Turque and Bethesda Magazine<\/em> publisher Steve Hull.\u00a0 That\u2019s it, folks.<\/p>\n

When voters don\u2019t know what their government does, they are less likely to understand it and trust it.\u00a0 And the few stories that remain are disproportionately negative ones.\u00a0 Over the course of the last year, the two dominant stories on Montgomery County government have been the Giant Tax Hike and the dreadful performance of the county\u2019s liquor monopoly.\u00a0 Neither one generates happiness among the public.<\/p>\n

3. \u00a0Declining Voter Turnout<\/strong><\/p>\n

Voter turnout has been declining in Montgomery County for some time now, although this year\u2019s contested Presidential primary was an exception.\u00a0 Consider the trend in mid-term primaries, which usually decide elections for county officials.\u00a0 In 2002, 143,762 voters turned out in MoCo\u2019s primary.\u00a0 That number fell in every cycle through 2014, when 111,231 voters turned out.\u00a0 That is actually less than primary turnout in 1990, when 118,527 people came out to vote.\u00a0 The declining number of voters shrinks the mailing universe used by county-level candidates, meaning that an ever-smaller number of people receive communications from candidates.\u00a0 The number of Democrats who voted in all three of the 2006, 2010 and 2014 primaries totaled just over 40,000 people<\/a>, or four percent of the population.\u00a0 That means the HUGE majority of the population does not hear from candidates at election time, and as we said above, it\u2019s hard for people to trust elected officials they don\u2019t know.<\/p>\n

4. \u00a0The General Electorate is Getting Less Liberal<\/strong><\/p>\n

Years ago, the general electorate \u2013 which votes on ballot questions and charter amendments \u2013 regularly voted down right-wing proposals like Ficker\u2019s.\u00a0 Not anymore.\u00a0 On each of the last three occasions on which they were asked to settle a policy question, the voters opted for the less progressive option<\/a> \u2013 approving Ficker\u2019s property tax amendment in 2008, opposing the ambulance fee in 2010 and opposing some of the police union\u2019s collective bargaining rights in 2012.\u00a0 Democrats account for roughly 60% of the county\u2019s general election voters and not all of them are liberals.\u00a0 When it comes to general election voters deciding policy issues, all bets are off now.<\/p>\n

5. \u00a0Change at the Board of Elections<\/strong><\/p>\n

The last time Ficker tried to get term limits on the ballot was in 2010, when the county\u2019s Board of Elections rejected his signatures<\/a>.\u00a0 But the current board now has a Republican majority appointed by the Governor and was accused of \u201cnaked voter suppression\u201d<\/a> by the County Council during a recent dispute over early voting sites.\u00a0 Who among you believes that this new board will race to protect the council from term limits?<\/p>\n

6. \u00a0No One Has the Council\u2019s Backs<\/strong><\/p>\n

When Ficker got term limits on the ballot in 2000, a large coalition of state legislators and business, labor and civic groups<\/a> came together to oppose him.\u00a0 Two committees spent tens of thousands of dollars on mailings<\/a> and campaigned vigorously to stop Ficker.\u00a0 The result was an 8-point loss for term limits.<\/p>\n

An anti-term limits lit piece from 2000.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"Ficker<\/a> \"Ficker<\/a><\/p>\n

That is not happening now.\u00a0 Some participants in the 2000 coalition would actually be perfectly fine with term limits in 2016.\u00a0 The business community dislikes the tax hike and believes the county government does not do enough to compete with D.C., Virginia and the rest of Maryland.\u00a0 The public employee unions are upset about the council\u2019s abrogating their collective bargaining agreements<\/a> and one of the biggest unions may even SUPPORT term limits<\/a>.\u00a0 And in a way, term limits may be in the strategic interest of these groups if they can get supportive candidates elected to the open seats. As for the state legislators, some may very well run for the open County Council seats in part because of council salaries<\/a>, which are on track to be three times what Annapolis lawmakers receive<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Robin Ficker may be the most unpopular political figure in the history of Montgomery County.\u00a0 Politicians and party activists have been laughing at him \u2013 and not in a good way! \u2013 for decades.\u00a0 But even the most clownish hecklers understand the old truism: he who laughs last laughs best.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Adam Pagnucco. Montgomery County political heckler Robin Ficker, who has tormented politicians and voters alike for decades, is on the verge of getting a charter amendment calling for term limits for county officials \u00a0on the ballot.\u00a0 Ficker\u2019s previous term limits amendments failed by 8 points in 2000 and 4 points in 2004.\u00a0 But Ficker, … Continue reading Why Term Limits Will Probably Pass<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[151,15,286,287],"tags":[1545,1463,1596],"class_list":["post-6851","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-adam-pagnucco","category-montgomery-county-council","category-robin-ficker","category-term-limits","tag-adam-pagnucco","tag-montgomery-county-council","tag-robin-ficker"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4mKJE-1Mv","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6851","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6851"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6851\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6862,"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6851\/revisions\/6862"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6851"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6851"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6851"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}