It’s time to terminate term limits – San Bernardino Sun

In the wake of the recent round of fires that have proven to be the costliest blazes in the history of the United States, the state of California should take a critical look at all of the policies that led up to the fires, and all of the policies that impacted our response to them, as well.

Nothing should be off the table.

I recently had conversations with two long-time California politicians about this very topic on my talk show for AM 790 KABC, former Los Angeles County Supervisor Don Knabe and Congressman Tom McClintock.  Both of them had a lot of ideas as to what went wrong, and what could be done to improve conditions in the future.  In fact, if you’d like to hear all of their ideas on the fires, you can listen to the podcasts of their interviews online at kabc.com.

What jumped out at me most was that both of them brought up something that hasn’t been mentioned much in the press, in regard to the fires:  term limits need to go.

It’s true that term limits were invented to protect us from career politicians who got elected when they were still wet behind the ears, spent decades lining their pockets, then being wheeled out on life support when voters finally said, “Enough!”

But this column isn’t about Mitch McConnell.

Fires and fire mitigation hit on a lot of policy areas that are complex, require expertise, and, most importantly, demand a long term outlook.

You don’t become an expert on water, insurance, fire, forestry, or budgetary issues overnight.  It takes a lot of reading, learning, getting to know the stakeholders – and the idea that if you don’t get it right, you will be the one who is blamed and punished for your failures, not someone else long after you are gone.

These fires highlighted how California politicians have lost the ability to think or plan beyond what’s going on right now.

Congressman McClintock told me that while state legislative term limits sounded like a good idea at the time, they’ve been a disaster in practice.

“I was one of the few legislators who supported legislative term limits back in 1990.  We thought it would bring a different attitude to the state legislature.  What we found was exactly the opposite,” McClintock said.  “One of the things that changed was that legislators who would take a long-term view of things and ask themselves, ‘This might be popular now but how is it going to work out ten years from now?’  Those questions stopped being asked.  So, I concluded over years of experience with term limits that they were a huge mistake.”

Good point.  Come to think of it, you know what else was popular in 1990?  Overalls with one snap undone, the Rachel haircut, grunge, Beanie Babies, tamagotchis, and George Foreman Grills.

We live and learn.

Former LA County Supervisor Don Knabe said the same thing has proven to be true at the county level.

“There really are no public policy issues any more, I mean, what we are dealing with is either box-checking, or we are trying to deal with short-term issues, so that we get some publicity, so that we get reelected for our two remaining terms, or whatever it may be.  And there’s no accountability, no one is held responsible….you know how much damage you can do in 2 years or 4 years?  Or not deal with issues like insurance, or like fire protection, like public safety, those kinds of things.  So, there’s no accountability,” Knabe concluded.