Term limit tenacity pays off in Nebraska.

The Legislature and the over have battled over term limits for the past decade in Nebraska. The voters won, and term limits will soon go into effect in the only state with just one chamber. Observers fear that the legislative branch will be severely hobbled.

Leaders of Nebraska's one-house, nonpartisan Legislature have undertaken an ambitious task. They are looking for ways to preserve institutional memory after 2008, when the last members of the current, 49-member body will be term-limited out of office.

Doug Kristensen, before leaving the post of speaker last month to become chancellor of the University of Nebraska at Kearney, directed the legislative staff to begin compiling a record of issues and procedures. The idea was to provide a repository of information to spare future legislators from having to "spend five or six years figuring out where we have been."

This reflects a concern of leaders about a term limit amendment that, when fully implemented in 2007-2009, will strip the legislative branch of veteran lawmakers, custodians of an oral legislative tradition.

The potential damage in Nebraska will be compounded by the lack of a second legislative chamber. In other states, a term-limited representative might seek election to the Senate, thereby keeping her knowledge at work in the legislative branch. Nebraska has no "other chamber." It will be eight years and out.

Political scientist Robert Sittig, a leading authority on the unicameral Legislature, contends that the term limit concept will hit Nebraska harder than it will hit other states. To him, the ideal legislative body has one-third careerists, one-third newcomers and the rest in between. But under term limits, Nebraska will have a Legislature composed of half newcomers in their get-acquainted first term and half lame ducks, forbidden to run again--freshmen and sophomores with no juniors and seniors.

Nebraska's one- to two-day orientation for new senators may have to be expanded significantly to give them more information up front. There is also a concern about the talent pool. Will qualified people run for an office that offers no opportunity to seek a long and productive career? Senator DiAnna Schimek, chairman of the Committee on Government, Military and Veterans' Affairs, predicts that staff experience will diminish as new legislators bring in new staff members.

Consideration is being given to having committee staffers work in a central agency rather than being hired by individual committee chairs in order to provide more security for long-time professional staff members.

Senator Schimek says the Legislature has already felt the negative effects of term limits even though no one will be officially term-limited until the 2006 election.

"Incoming legislators are less patient about moving into committee leadership positions," she says. "There is less respect for the traditional view of listening and learning while preparing for leadership."

This has led to a legislative climate that, in the view of Schimek, is "less cooperative, more competitive."

Schimek also blamed term limits for an unusually large number of uncontested legislative races in the 2002 elections-26 of the 49 districts are electing a senator this year, but in 11 of those districts the incumbent is unopposed. Schimek theorizes that potential opponents, knowing that this is the incumbent's last election, decided to wait for an open seat in 2006.

Schimek drafted a bill to give the voters a chance to revisit the 2000 amendment but decided against introducing it. "The timing wasn't right," she says. She holds out the hope that the public will turn against term limits when it sees the damage it causes the legislative process.

Certainly the voters were warned of these and other negative consequences. Organized opponents at one time or another during an eight-year Nebraska campaign included the AFL-CIO, the League of Women Voters, the NAACP, the Nebraska Democratic Party and Common Cause. Most major newspapers, including the statewide World-Herald, consistently opposed term limits on their editorial pages. Professor Sittig was an early and vocal foe of the idea, arguing among other things that Nebraska already had too much turnover in its Legislature, not too little.

On average, one-fourth of the membership turns over every two years, Sittig says. The average senator in Nebraska spends only seven years in office. Yes, Sittig noted, some stay on to become veteran leaders, But significant numbers of one- and two-term senators typically leave the legislative branch long before they achieve their full potential as legislators.

"Instead, we should be working on ways to help senators serve longer, not increase turnover," he said.

HOW TERM LIMITS CAME TO NEBRASKA

The story of how term limits came to Nebraska is in some ways typical of how term limits got anywhere--a confluence of native populism and a big-money campaign fueled by out-of-state contributors. But the Nebraska story also has elements that make it different.

Nebraska had been the scene of considerable initiative activity during the 1980s. Independent-minded voters reacted to the Legislature's passage of a seat belt law by circulating referendum petitions and repealing the measure. Another referendum repealed a tax increase that state senators had enacted for the schools.

The Legislature reacted by passing laws to make it harder to circulate petitions for initiatives or referenda. It tried to prohibit paid circulators, but the courts threw that out. It tried to require that circulators be residents of Nebraska, or registered voters, but that also was overturned. Then lawmakers went to the voters. A constitutional amendment requiring that petition signers be registered voters passed in 1988.

Later, the Legislature went a step further and passed a law requiring that petition circulators not operate outside their home county. Observers said that key senators saw term limits on the horizon and wanted a roadblock.

POPULIST SPIRIT STRONG

Such developments inflamed the populist spirit. The Concerned Citizens Committee was created to defend the right of initiative and referendum, and it filed a lawsuit. In 1992, the Nebraska Supreme Court threw out the Legislature's county requirement for circulators.

This was a victory for the citizens' committee, but when the Legislature, still under federal pressure, passed a seat belt law for the second time, grumbling intensified. People felt there was an unwritten rule against the Legislature's overturning the will of the voters as expressed via the initiative or referendum.

Once committee members heard about the work of U.S. Term Lim its, they decided that this was the practical approach they had sought.

"We could see that the problem was career politicians who got in and stayed on to accumulate an inordinate amount of power," says Bob Wright, a member of the Concerned Citizens Committee. They launched a term limit petition campaign in 1992 focusing on Nebraska's congressional delegation although, Wright says, "We thought we could help the Legislature by throwing it in, too."

Polling showed support for term limits in Nebraska at 75 percent. Activists had the support of three former governors, as well as that of a former Omaha mayor and a former congressman. Support crossed party lines.

And money came pouring in. U.S. Term Limits chipped in $80,000. Another $13,000 came from an entity called Americans to Limit Congressional Terms. Several dozen individuals, some prominent in Nebraska, made reportable contributions of more than $100.

OPPOSITION SHORT ON MONEY

The Nebraska Democratic Party formally came out against term limits. The state GOP took no position, but declined to join with the national party's support of term limits. An umbrella group, Citizens for Responsible Government, brought together the civic, business and labor opposition. But the opposition never caught up. Nebraskans for Term Limits outspent its opponents $240,000 to $60,000.

A World-Herald editorial noted with irony that term limit supporters, who railed against big-money politics, were now big-money politicians themselves.

When the votes were counted, term limits had passed with a 68 percent majority, restricting the service of Nebraska's senators and U.S. representatives, as well as that of certain executive branch officials.

COURT STRIKES DOWN TERM LIMITS

The 1992 amendment survived little more than a year when the Nebraska Supreme Court, in a dramatic and controversial decision, struck it down. The court looked at the 1988 amendment requiring that petition-signers be registered voters. The unanimous opinion written by Judge David Lanphier said the insertion of "registered voters" in the state constitution's petition language had an unintended effect of elevating the threshold for an initiative petition campaign.

Formerly, about 70,000 signatures were enough to get a proposed law or constitutional amendment onto the ballot. The 1988 language, according to the court, required more than 100,000.

Applying this retroactively to the 1992 campaign, the court held that the term limit amendment had been improperly placed on the ballot.

The Concerned Citizens Committee geared up again. U.S. Term Limits kicked in $190,000 to hire paid circulators. The issue went on the 1994 ballot. Again, it was approved by 68 percent of the voters. Again the Nebraska Supreme Court threw out the amendment. This time it was because of a federal court ruling that only a U.S. constitutional amendment could alter the terms of federal lawmakers.

SCARLET LETTER AMENDMENT

With congressional terms beyond reach, the term limit campaign adopted a new strategy. It proposed an amendment calling on state and federal legislators to work for an amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

Incumbents and challengers in subsequent elections would be identified on the ballot as pro-limits or anti-limits. This was called the Scarlet Letter amendment; it was designed to damn an uncooperative candidate with a label. They also campaigned to remove Judge Lanphier from the court and restore the previous, lower petition signature requirements.

Although the voters statewide opted not to overturn Judge Lanphier's 1994 ruling, the vote went heavily against Lanphier in his district, making him the only Nebraska Supreme Court judge ever to he denied retention. The Scarlet Letter amendment passed with 58 percent of the vote, although a federal judge promptly struck it down as an abridgement of free speech.

With that decision, the term limit crusade seemed to go into remission. U.S. Term Limits, for a time, seemed to lose interest in funding state campaigns once Congress was out of the picture. Others seemed to lose interest, too. Few of the big-name Nebraska endorsements and contributions of 1992 were still involved by the end of the decade.

The campaign was increasingly funded by vaguely named committees. An attempt in 1998 to get a version of the Scarlet Letter amendment on the ballot fell flat. A lack of funds prevented an aggressive signature collection campaign.

SUCCESS AT LAST

Even after all its setbacks, the term limit campaign in Nebraska made one last gasp. In 2000, with new leadership and an amendment aimed strictly at the Legislature, term limits were back on the ballot. A new organization, Americans for Sound Public Policy, contributed heavily to a $290,000 campaign. Opponents charged that it was just U.S. Term Limits by a different name. Voters approved the 2000 measure by a 56 percent majority.

Professor Sittig, Senator Schimek and others now say they take heart in the fact that the majorities for term limits declined over the four elections: 68 percent in 1992 and 1994 to 58 percent in 1996 and 56 percent in 2000. A World-Herald poll in 2000 indicated 49 percent support for term limits, down sharply from the 75 percent of eight years earlier.

But nothing in those numbers suggests that term limits will be repealed anytime soon. There is talk of a possible lawsuit. It might be framed as a challenge to a constitutional amendment abridging the people's right to vote for the candidates of their choice. But that would come later if it comes at all; the actionable event would be the refusal of a candidate's filing. That won't happen before 2006.

"Nebraska was the pawn on a national chessboard," Sittig said recently.

Bob Wright disagrees. "It's going to work out exactly as planned," he says. "I'm going to hate to lose my senator. But all in all, it will be helpful to the state, I think."

As to Senator Schimek and the others who must face the future without the past and current access to an institutional memory, the goal is to be ready for whatever happens--and to hope any damage to the integrity of the legislative branch can be contained.

RELATED ARTICLE: ADAPTING TO TERM LIMITS

Rich Jones

The National Conference of State Legislatures, the Council of State Governments, the State Legislative Leaders Foundation and a group of legislative scholars are jointly conducting a project to identify the effects of term limits on legislatures and actions lawmakers can take to adapt to them. The project consists of three major elements:

1. Conducting a national survey of all state legislators to assess changes by comparing data from legislators in term limited and non-term limited states.

2. Undertaking in-depth case studies on the effects of term limits in six states--Arkansas, California, Colorado, Florida, Maine and Ohio.

3. Collecting demographic data from legislators, such as age, occupation, political party, tenure in office and previous political office, and comparing changes in term limited and non-term limited states.

The three-year project began in January 2001 and preliminary data will be presented at the NCSL Annual Meeting in July. For more information call Jennie Drage Bowser in NCSL's Denver office at [phone] or check the NCSL Web site at www.ncsl.org/ programs/legman/ABOUT/JtProject.htm

TERM LIMITS--NOT A MISSISSIPPI IDEA

The term limit movement was on a roll in the 1990s, winning nearly every time it reached the ballot, capitalizing on voter frustration with the political process and changing the nature of some 21 statehouses around the country.

But then came Mississippi.

There, voters have--not once, but twice--rejected the concept, stunning some observers both locally and around the nation, protecting the Legislature's unquestioned supremacy over the executive branch and sucking the momentum out of the movement--at least there.

"I felt like it was going to be a difficult, but winnable, campaign. I felt that in my gut from Day 1," said Giselle Russell, a Mississippi-based political and media consultant who managed the most recent anti-term limit campaign. "To the extent that the head of a major manufacturing plant and the head of the trial lawyers (association) were both opposed to term limits, that represents a good example of how this spoke to the people of Mississippi's personal beliefs."

Indeed, by capitalizing on a core, defensive Mississippi instinct to distrust "outsiders" and their motives, opponents of the term limits movement joined in a unique coalition that resulted in a 55-45 percent margin of victory at the ballot box in November 1999.

To date, term limits is the only issue ever to even meet the strict legislative requirements for the state's ballot initiative process that was implemented in 1992. Supporters of an idea must gather approximately 92,000 signatures (in a state of 2.8 million), equally drawn from each congressional district. Moreover, a majority of those casting votes on that day, not just a majority voting on the specific issue, must approve the concept.

But term limit proponents have twice found enough support at least to get it on the ballot.

In 1995, the proposition would have placed limits on all local and state officials, automatically generating a widespread base of opposition in a state where the courthouse crowd still holds considerable sway. It failed 54-46 percent, with public debate shifted away from the general principle of term limits and onto specific doubts about the breadth and wording of the proposal.

Convinced that voters still liked the concept, term limit supporters almost immediately hit the hot dusty roads of Mississippi, knocking on doors and gathering signatures for a new proposal. This time, it simply would have limited legislators to two back-to-back terms in each chamber.

"The Legislature with no term limits is basically a closed club," said term limit supporter Randy Russell at a debate three months before the election.

In the intervening years, lawmakers tried to throw up another roadblock. They proposed, and voters ultimately approved, a change in the initiative process that required petition gatherers to be Mississippi residents, a move that retroactively struck the second term limit proposal from the ballot, because the majority of the signatures had been gathered by circulators imported from other states.

A federal court ultimately ruled it could not be applied retroactively, but the fight served to reinforce the perception that the primary term limit supporters--not withstanding then Governor Kirk Fordice--were from some faraway land.

With the lieutenant governor, who presides over the Senate, running for governor in 1999, House Speaker Tim Ford, a Democrat from the Tupelo area, and his chief supporters were left to help pull together the opposition.

They turned to the Mississippi Farm Bureau and the state's association of locally owned electric power utilities, giving the movement an instant base statewide. They also reached out to major industries, Rotary clubs and others, asking for space in company newsletters or a moment at company meetings.

"We had a central message ... these were outsiders who were trying to dictate the way we choose our officials," said Russell, pointing not only to petition gatherers, but to the substantial financial support from national term limit advocates. "Mississippi has a very proud tradition. It's very natural for our citizens to be leery of someone from the Northeast coming in and telling us how to run our government."

But that history hasn't always been so proud. Similar complaints of outside agitators during the 1960s were used to heap scorn, and worse, on civil rights workers from the North. But in 1999, it resonated with a far broader coalition. At a public hearing at predominantly black Mississippi Valley State University, nearly everyone spoke against the concept.

"Just at the point we get visible numbers of women and minorities in the process, now we are going to them and saying they can't serve more than eight years," said Elen Singh, a teacher there.

Representative Rufus Straughter, a Democrat who would go on to head the Legislative Black Caucus, said he wanted to know more about the motivations of the term limit supporters. "I'm a little leery about where you're coming from," he told them.

Although term limit supporters in Mississippi stuck to the typical cookie-cutter, anti-incumbency message that resonated in other states, term limit opponents tailored their arguments.

In print advertisements in newspapers, they referred to term limit supporters as "carpet-baggers." In one television spot, they reminded voters that seniority in Washington had so often made up for the state's relatively small congressional delegation.

U.S. Representative Jamie Whitten and U.S. Senator John Stennis, both now deceased, are nothing short of mythical figures in Mississippi today in part because of the federal funds they funneled back home. Only on the rarest of occasions have Mississippi voters ever turned out incumbent congressmen. Longevity is expected.

In perhaps the most powerful television spot of the campaign, G. V. "Sonny" Montgomery, a retired 30-year veteran of the Congress and 10-year member of the Legislature before that, minced few words:

"I know from experience term limits are not for our state," Montgomery told voters in his deep, Mississippi drawl. "Send the outsiders home."

Reed Branson, The Commercial Appeal

Francis L. Partsch retired this year after 26 years with the Omaha World-Herald, where he was chief of the capital bureau and later editor of the editorial pages. Next year he will take over as editor of Masthead magazine, the quarterly journal of the National Conference of Editorial Writers.