Print

Email story

Comment

Email editor

Term limits issue becomes a hot potato

By STEVE BOUSQUET
Published May 5, 2006

TALLAHASSEE - As the legislative session enters its final day today, the House has not yet acted on a touchy topic: whether to strip from the fall ballot a proposal to extend term limits from eight to 12 years.

Both houses voted overwhelmingly last year to ask voters in November to replace the existing "Eight Is Enough" term limit law with a 12-year limit for legislators and Cabinet members.

But this is an election year. A lot of lawmakers do not want to share a ballot with a proposal to prolong politicians' careers, even though it wouldn't apply to current officeholders.

"A lot of members have the same feelings I have, that eight is enough and 12 is too many," said House Speaker Allan Bense, R-Panama City. "There is a movement to unwind that."

Bense is one of 92 members of the House who voted last year to place the 12-year term limit on this year's ballot. Another is Rep. Everett Rice, R-Indian Shores, a candidate for attorney general, who now says longer term limits is a question best not put before voters.

"I think the average voter will criticize us for having the audacity to do this," Rice said. Rep. Randy Johnson, R-Celebration, a candidate for chief financial officer, said that if the Republican-dominated House does not vote today to erase the proposal from the ballot, it will infuriate many conservative voters who are pivotal in GOP primary elections.

For Republicans, Johnson said, a 12-year term limit for politicians would be "a frog in the punch bowl" on a general election ballot. He said it would be an embarrassment if the Republican majority did not act to remove it.

Removing a proposed constitutional amendment from the ballot requires approval of three-fifths of both houses.

The Senate voted last Friday, 26-14, to toss 12-year term limits off the ballot. The House needs 72 votes and has been dickering over the question ever since.

"To be honest, everybody's kind of all over the board. There really is not a consensus," said Rep. Andy Gardiner, R-Orlando, the House majority leader and vote counter.

Gardiner said members have been hearing opposition from constituents, but it is up to Bense to call for a vote.

Bense has said he wouldn't act unless there were 72 votes to kill the measure.

Lawmakers are of many minds on the subject.

Rep. Chris Smith, D-Fort Lauderdale, the House minority leader, opposed the eight-year limit on terms and favors 12. He says he would vote to keep it on the ballot.

"The people put term limits on the ballot. The people should take it off," Smith said, in reference to the 1992 Eight Is Enough law that passed as a citizens' ballot initiative. --Steve Bousquet is at bousquet@sptimes.com or (850) 224-7263.

[Last modified May 5, 2006, 02:30:26]