TALLAHASSEE -- Seldom have grown-ups spoken such nonsense, at least not when sober, as did members of a Senate committee this week in pushing along a bill (CS for SB 378) to close public utility records to public inspection.

They pretended that it's to prevent identity theft. They could do that harmlessly simply by withholding Social Security numbers, credit card data and other personal financial information. But this bill goes far beyond, to make secret even names, addresses and how much water or electricity some public official or his bigshot buddy might be squandering. That, of course, is the real purpose of the bill. "Identity theft" is hogwash.

They also pretended that it's necessary to protect public utilities from having private utilities raid their customers. Since when is there any competition over water pipes?

Silliest of all was the committee chairman, Rudy Garcia, R-Hialeah, who said it would help parents assure the safety of their daughters. Family details don't appear on utility records.

The bill passed 6-0. Whatever became of the purpose of committee hearings, which is to kill bad bills? Senate committees almost never do that any more. It's their inside joke -- at your expense.

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Kudos to the Idaho Legislature, which last week overrode the governor's veto and repealed the term limits voters had approved in 1994. According to the Associated Press, the Republicans led the way to repeal despite their having campaigned for term limits a decade ago.

Idaho's initiative, unlike Florida's, allows citizens to enact new laws that the Legislature can modify or, if it has the nerve, repeal. Florida's initiative permits only changes in the Constitution, which makes it harder to recognize and correct mistakes.

Term limits were Florida's huge mistake in 1992. Fresh proof came this week when a House Republican task force on taxes wanted to hear what had gone wrong during the services tax debate of 1987. Only one House member personally experienced that, and as she is the Democratic leader, they didn't want to hear from her. So they called in two lobbyists who were in the government then. Unsurprisingly, both are opponents of Senate President John McKay's tax reform plan.

The Senate, though made up largely of former House members, is equally hurting for institutional memory. Only one senator was in the Legislature in 1987, which wasn't really so long ago. As predicted, term limits are forcing the Legislature to rely even more on the memory (and advice) of lobbyists, the so-called Third House who are not term-limited. People could reasonably wonder if that wasn't the purpose of term limits to begin with.

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