{"id":6863,"date":"2016-06-29T07:00:50","date_gmt":"2016-06-29T11:00:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/?p=6863"},"modified":"2016-06-28T17:06:08","modified_gmt":"2016-06-28T21:06:08","slug":"two-myths-about-term-limits","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/?p=6863","title":{"rendered":"Two Myths About Term Limits"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

The fight over whether term limits should apply to Montgomery County elected officials is now underway, and that\u2019s even before political heckler Robin Ficker has submitted his signatures for his proposed charter amendment.\u00a0 Supporters and opponents are offering arguments for their point of view, some with merit and some without.\u00a0 Today we will take down one of the most prominent arguments from each side.<\/p>\n

1. \u00a0Term Limits are Needed to Create Competition<\/strong><\/p>\n

The historical record shows plenty of competition for elected office in Montgomery County.\u00a0 It just doesn\u2019t happen to be the kind of competition that some term limits supporters want.<\/p>\n

Since charter government was established in 1970, there has been one Republican County Executive (Jim Gleason, the first to hold that office) and three Republican Council Members (District 1\u2019s Betty Ann Krahnke and Howard Denis and District 2\u2019s Nancy Dacek).\u00a0 The other county elected officials have all been Democrats.\u00a0 But there has been substantial competition among the Democrats over the years, including the Neal Potter vs. Sidney Kramer factions in the 1980s and early 1990s and the competing council slates in 2002.<\/p>\n

Below are the election results over the last six cycles.<\/p>\n

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

Incumbents were reelected 42 times and lost 6 times.\u00a0 It\u2019s important to note that two of those six losses were by Republicans in general elections: Dacek (2002) and Denis (2006).\u00a0 Including them, incumbents had a win rate of 88%.<\/p>\n

But when you count the open seats (15 of them including three special elections), newcomers filled seats one-third of the time.\u00a0 That\u2019s plenty of turnover and FAR more than Congress<\/a>.\u00a0 Ficker\u2019s objection is that Democrats replace other Democrats, and term limits won\u2019t change that.<\/p>\n

2. \u00a0Term Limits Supporters are Similar to Brexit Voters<\/strong><\/p>\n

This is an argument made by four-term council incumbent George Leventhal, who has called term limits \u201ca dumb, unnecessary protest gesture\u201d<\/a> and compared supporters to Brexit voters.\u00a0 Leventhal has also noted that Help Save Maryland, which the Southern Poverty Law Center has labeled a \u201cnativist extremist\u201d group<\/a>, has gathered signatures for the charter amendment.\u00a0 This is a clear attempt to marginalize term limits supporters and paint them as pawns of racist xenophobes.<\/p>\n

There are two problems with this argument.\u00a0 First, if Ficker, Help Save Maryland and the county GOP were the only people in favor of term limits, they would have absolutely no chance of passage.\u00a0 So why are Council Members like Leventhal so worried about it?\u00a0 The answer is that he and other opponents know the issue is getting broader traction.\u00a0 Second, the motivations of supporters are almost entirely local ones.\u00a0 Consider the following groups who might be tempted to back term limits.<\/p>\n

People Who Object to the Giant Tax Hike<\/u><\/p>\n

The nine percent property tax hike is extremely unpopular, unnecessarily large<\/a>, and could not have come at a worse time.\u00a0 If term limits becomes a proxy vote on whether the Giant Tax Hike should have gone through \u2013 and Ficker is doing everything in his power to link the issues \u2013 term limits will pass by a mile.<\/p>\n

Business People<\/u><\/p>\n

Business owners and managers have been complaining incessantly about the difficulty of doing business in Montgomery County for many years.\u00a0 Passage of repeated tax hikes<\/a> along with progressive legislation that increases the cost of doing business feeds into their unhappiness.\u00a0 Then there are the restaurants and retailers who are forced to do business with the county\u2019s incompetent Department of Liquor Control.\u00a0 Term limits seem like a good idea to some of them!<\/p>\n

County Employees<\/u><\/p>\n

First, the County Council abrogated the county employee unions\u2019 collective bargaining agreements<\/a> .\u00a0 Next, the council introduced legislation to weaken their ability to negotiate<\/a>.\u00a0 Some in labor are furious and there is even a chance that one or more unions could SUPPORT term limits.<\/p>\n

One thing that many people outside labor don\u2019t understand is that unions are political organizations.\u00a0 Local union leaders are elected by their members every three years.\u00a0 Each union has to deal with internal discussions, occasional disagreements and even dissent.\u00a0 Members have expectations of service and performance, and when they are not met, there can be consequences.\u00a0 When an employer rubs a union leader\u2019s face in the bitter mud of defeat, that leader must fight back or risk being seen as weak.\u00a0 And if such a leader tells members that term limits are the only way to defend their rights in the workplace, a lot of those members are going to listen.<\/p>\n

Non-Democrats and Moderate Democrats<\/u><\/p>\n

Republicans and unaffiliated voters have long been on the outside looking in at county politics.\u00a0 But many moderate Democrats, especially those far away from the liberal precincts near the Beltway, don\u2019t feel adequately represented either.\u00a0 True or not, comments about \u201cTakoma Park liberals\u201d dominating county government are not unheard of, even among Democrats.\u00a0 The county Democratic Party\u2019s rank-and-file is more ideologically diverse than its elected leadership, and if the leaders don\u2019t do things to keep moderates on board (like limit the size of tax hikes), they will lose some of them to the likes of Governor Larry Hogan and even to the cause of term limits.<\/p>\n

Note the common thread of the concerns held by the above groups: none of them are linked to racism, xenophobia or political extremism.\u00a0 Whether they are right or wrong, all are rooted in local issues and many are in line with these folks\u2019 self-interest.<\/p>\n

In general, it\u2019s a REALLY bad idea to call voters \u201cdumb\u201d even if sometimes there\u2019s a little bit of truth in it.\u00a0 If that\u2019s the argument that term limits opponents use, term limits will DEFINITELY pass.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Adam Pagnucco. The fight over whether term limits should apply to Montgomery County elected officials is now underway, and that\u2019s even before political heckler Robin Ficker has submitted his signatures for his proposed charter amendment.\u00a0 Supporters and opponents are offering arguments for their point of view, some with merit and some without.\u00a0 Today we … Continue reading Two Myths About Term Limits<\/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":[151,16,286,287],"tags":[1545,1464,1463,1596],"class_list":["post-6863","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-adam-pagnucco","category-george-leventhal","category-robin-ficker","category-term-limits","tag-adam-pagnucco","tag-george-leventhal","tag-montgomery-county-council","tag-robin-ficker"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4mKJE-1MH","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6863","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=6863"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6863\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6866,"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6863\/revisions\/6866"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6863"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6863"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6863"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}