A Wisconsin right-leaning think tank released a report Thursday calling for 12-year term limits on state legislators due to the growing average age of legislators and their low election turnover rates.
The report, authored by Wisconsin Policy Research Institute Senior Fellow Christian Schneider, said job security for Wisconsin legislators is at an all-time high because of the lack of strong opposition candidates throughout the state.
This absence of competition results in a turnover rate that is one of the lowest in the United States and continues to decrease relative to other states, the report said.
The growing average age in both the Assembly and Senate has created a lack of civic interest among Wisconsin’s youth, according to the report, due to a perception that legislators are out of touch with their interests, a mindset that could continue Wisconsin’s descent into debt and worsen state budget shortfalls.
Despite the resurgence of youth interest in national politics seen in the 2008 election, the report said young people in Wisconsin are still growing increasingly alienated from voting in “off-year” elections for representatives and senators.
Schneider said the issue of lobbyists’ influence over state legislators is also a reason to begin imposing term limits.
“Now, you have a situation where legislators serve for so long, they forge these friendships and relationships with lobbyists over the course of 10, 15, 20 years,” Schneider said. “When you bring in new legislators, they may not have relationships with lobbyists that existed before.”
Senate President Fred Risser, D-Madison, the longest actively-serving state legislator in the United States, disagreed with the proposal to place term limits on state legislators. He cited his efforts to pass anti-smoking legislation and renovation projects for the state Capitol as examples of long-term projects that re-elected legislators must oversee.
“I’ve been working on smoking legislation for 25 years, trying to get some kind of a bill through,” Risser said. “I finally was successful this year. That would never have happened if you had a constant turnover of legislators.”
Risser also said he worries other forces connected to state government could take too much control if term limits are created.
“You’d have three major groups running the government: lobbyists, bureaucracy and legislative staff, and they’re not elected,” Risser said. “You don’t term limit a doctor; you don’t tell a doctor that he can only take care of you for a few years and then you’ve got to have a new doctor.”
The report said WPRI was not confident the Legislature will pass term limits because of heavy resistance to the concept and the lack of referendum in Wisconsin’s Constitution, and said there is a better chance the Legislature will turn the Capitol into a “bed-and-breakfast” before they impose term limits.
