Wilson: Term limits could have unintended consequences for Mississippi Legislature

By Steve Wilson | Mississippi Watchdog

Mississippi legislators and other officer holders could be limited to two consecutive four-year terms, like the governor and lieutenant governor.

Problem is, good legislators — as well as the bad — would be cast out by the ballot initiative, filed with the Mississippi Secretary of State’s office by Keith Plunkett, the policy and communications director for state Sen. Chris McDaniel’s United Conservatives Fund.

The initiative is proposed to stem the power of incumbency and end the corruption instituted by career politicians. To summarize — throw the bums out and their waste, fraud and abuse with it.
Plunkett told Mississippi Watchdog the biggest reason for filing for a ballot initiative was to get the public more involved in the political process. Incumbents are able to raise huge war chests with ease, and it often has a chilling effect on potential challengers by ending the battle before it begins.

“It’s about getting the public to re-engage and actually have access to the machine of government as it functions in the Legislature,” Plunkett said. “Elections will become more about policy rather than personality or the guy with the coolest logo. It becomes much, much more about policy.”

Nathan Shrader is an assistant professor of political science at Millsaps College who served as a legislative aide in both the Pennsylvania Senate and the Virginia General Assembly.
Term limits can have serious, unintended consequences, he says.
“I don’t think this is the panacea that a lot of reformers think that it would be,” Shrader said. He cited the book “Term Limits and The Dismantling of State Legislature Professionalism,” from 2005 by Thad Kousser.

Shrader said some of those consequences in three states — California, Colorado and Maine — studied by Kousser included a power shift to the executive branch, a big gain of strength of party leadership in the legislatures over their caucuses and the need for legislatures to hire more staff to deal with inexperienced lawmakers.