Term limits under attack

Surprising the know-it-alls and pulling off a bit of an upset, an honest gentleman of our acquaintance was elected to a relatively high office in Southern Nevada, a few years back.

When he and his wife went to the bank a short time later to apply for a mortgage on their new house, they were surprised to learn there was no longer any need for a credit check, financial statements, or any of that silly rigmarole. After all, he was now a high-ranking elected official!

Without even asking, he was mailed a little window decal that would have allowed him to park anywhere, any time, without getting a ticket.

The perks and privileges of public office are many and varied. But it seems to be the power itself that's hardest to give up. Oh -- as Gandalf warned in "The Fellowship of the Ring" -- they tell themselves they'll use the power "for good." But the prospect of giving it up, of going back to being an everyday drudge filling out forms and waiting in lines, seems unbearable.

So office-holders hate term limits, one method the voters have found to overcome advantages of incumbency so vast that American politicians have higher rates of retention in office than members of the old Soviet Politburo.

The only argument against term limits they've managed to come up with is hilarious. By tossing out a few old-timers who are already showing signs of Alzheimer's, term limits will cost the Legislature its "institutional memory," we're warned, allowing it to be "taken over" by "special interest lobbyists."

Ha! A freshman lawmaker or county commissioner who doesn't play ball with the "special interests" in this state is likely to find himself with an attractive and well-funded challenger, while his own well of union or corporate financing quickly runs dry, making him or her darned unlikely to ever become a second-term lawmaker.

Voters had it right the first time: After decades in office, elected officials start talking about the bureaucracy and its needs as "us;" the taxpayers as an endlessly milkable "them." They forget the hosing out of the stables that they promised when they first got elected. And the bureaucrats, their unions, and their lobbyists know it.

Here in Nevada, voters installed term limits for state office-holders through a constitutional amendment OK'd overwhelmingly in 1994 and again in 1996.

But the state's Supreme Court planted a time bomb in that process. Between the first and second votes, the court changed the wording of the amendment, breaking out term limits for judges into a separate question, where the self-serving justices correctly believed it could more easily be defeated.

Now, with term limits about to kick in, with the prince about to start chopping through the thicket around the castle, the forces of perpetual personal power are getting busy, preparing a challenge based on the claim that the imposed wording change prevented voters from actually approving the same amendment twice, as required.

Nevada Secretary of State Ross Miller acknowledges having had recent meetings with U.S. Sen. Harry Reid. While neither Democrat will acknowledge the topic of their talks, there are credible reports Sen. Reid has told Mr. Miller to be ready to rule on the constitutionality of the term limits amendment.

Offhand, that would appear to be a job for Attorney General Catherine Cortez Masto, another Democrat. So what's the new, voter-defying strategy?

If county registrars were ordered to accept filing papers from term-limited incumbents, the burden would then be on term-limit supporters to go to court as plaintiffs.

And make no mistake, it's the Democrats' leading lights who seem to most fear the tolling of the bell. By law, Assembly Speaker Barbara Buckley must leave office in 2010; Senate Minority Leader Dina Titus in 2012.

So it seems the Democrats are now taking the lead in attempting to stymie the voters' will on rotation in office -- though you can bet the party's "big names" will be at considerable pains to keep their fingerprints off the machinations.

This is all quite scurrilous, cynical and disgusting. If opponents of term limits think they have a winning case, let them pass petitions, put a repeal on the ballot, and argue their case in public.

Instead, don't be surprised if Nevada term limits turn up dead in the alley some rainy night -- and all the incumbent politicians turn out to have air-tight alibis:

"Me? I was out to dinner with my pals ... the 'special interests.' "