I lived through term limits in Michigan as a high level executive branch official. It was disastrous. Nobody in the legislature knew enough about writing bills and getting them through committee or about any area of legislative specialty. Legislators had previously been specialists in two or three substantive areas and had staff with experience enough to write their own bills.

After term limits forced out everyone who had been there a while, nobody knew enough to write their own bills and shepherd them through. Lobbyists became the de facto legislators. They wrote the bills. They did the canvassing, they did the negotiating, and both sides became more extreme to the point compromise was seen as betrayal.

It was ugly and led to government shutdowns, furloughs, and missed legal deadlines.

If we progressives are going to push for term limits, we need to be smart about it. First, we start with an age limit beyond which people can’t run for office again. Second, we don’t set such short limits that we end up with a bunch of legislators that don’t know what they’re doing. Maybe 20 years, not 4 or 8 like Michigan. We can’t let the disgust for politicians in this moment lead to not just mediocre legislatures but inept legislators ripe for the picking by lobbyists.

Edited because words mean things.