EDITORIAL : TIME FOR TERM LIMITS.

TERM limits do one important thing: They keep elected officials running for their political lives so they can't take the public completely for granted.

Before Franklin Delano Roosevelt, presidents adhered to George Washington's dictum that the commander in chief should not serve more than two terms to avoid comparisons to monarchy the young nation had just divorced itself from.

Yet, term limits were not introduced in Los Angeles city government until 1993, when voters approved a measure to prohibit any person from serving more than two, four-year terms in any city elected office.

The 1990s also brought term limits to the California government, from the governor down to assembly members.

On the plus side, term limits give more people an opportunity to get involved in public service and rid government of entrenched, do-nothing or obstructive officials.

Among the negatives, good lawmakers are forced to find new offices in a game of politcal musical chairs.

Thus, nobody gets so fat and lazy they forget why they're in public service except, of course, for county government.

That's what gives offices such as district attorney and the county Board of Supervisors, along with the House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate, the aura of being the last vestige of old-time politics.

The board has survived without term limits because supervisors have fought ferociously against them to retain their big salaries, huge perks and thousands of sycophants.

Members achieve such a domineering presence in their districts of nearly 2 million residents and in their campaign coffers they rarely have competition at the polls. The last incumbent supervisor to lose an election was Baxter Ward, who lost to Michael D. Antonovich in 1980.

The result is that no one even deigned to run against any of the three incumbents Antonovich, Don Knabe and Yvonne Brathwaite Burke up for re-election this March.

That's what makes politicians drool over the prospect of expanding the board from five to nine members jobs for life.

Nine board members totally secure in their role won't solve the county's problems any better than five and won't make any of them more responsive to the public.

The county would be better off with an elected chief executive officer running things, and a part-time board acting as the legislative body. But the public is so fed up with politicians there's no chance of voters adding to the numbers of elected officials they are mad at.