Desperate Legislators
Secret Restaurant Recipes
Recipes that really work - don't be fooled by imitators.
Author: Jan Larson Politicians at all levels of government typically run for office
ostensibly to "serve the people." Once elected, however, it is
not uncommon that many legislators find that "serving the
people" is not such a bad gig after all. A good many of these
faithful solons decide that they really don't want to give up their
roles as public factotums and instead will fight tooth and nail to
retain those positions of servitude.
There is no better example of this legislative desperation than in
my home state of Nebraska. In 1992, Nebraska voters passed a
constitutional amendment that would limit legislators, statewide
officials and U. S. Senators to two consecutive terms and U. S.
Representatives to four consecutive terms.
That measure was challenged and ultimately thrown out in 1994
by the Nebraska Supreme Court on the basis that initiative
champions did not gather the requisite number of signatures to
place the issue on the ballot.
Undeterred, term-limit supporters managed to get another
constitutional amendment initiative on the 1994 ballot. Once
again, the measure passed by a large margin.
A 1995 U. S. Supreme Court ruling declared that individual
states could not limit the terms of U. S. Representatives and
Senators thus rendering that portion of the 1994 measure
unconstitutional. As a result of that ruling, in 1996 the state
Supreme Court ruled that the remaining portions of the measure
were "so intertwined" with the unconstitutional part, that the
entire measure was declared void.
A term limits initiative was once again presented to the voters in
2000 and for the third time Nebraskans approved limiting state
legislators to two consecutive terms.
One might think that after asking the question three times and
getting the same answer three times, the "servants of the people"
would respect the wishes of those people. One might think, but
one would be wrong.
Last year, as the first group of senators to be affected by the
2000 amendment was approaching the mandatory end of their
"service," the Nebraska unicameral considered asking voters to
weaken or repeal the term limits. Public outcry quashed that
idea before it got any farther.
Not easily thwarted in their quest to retain power, three esteemed
Nebraska state senators, Marian Price (2 terms), Dennis Byars (3
terms) and Ernie Chambers (10 terms) have continued to fight
term limits in the courts.
Their latest desperate assault on the wishes of the people of
Nebraska claimed that the amendment was "poorly written."
Specifically their assertion was that since the amendment
defined the service of more than one-half of a term as a full term
for the purposes of term limits, legislators would be forced out
of office midway through their second terms, and therefore the
amendment should be invalidated.
Fortunately, sanity prevailed in the state judiciary last week
when District Judge Karen Flowers ruled, as reported in the
Omaha World-Herald [1], that upholding the senators' "poor
wording" claim would require her to ignore "most, if not all" of
the rules governing constitutional law. She also wrote, "It is
only by torturing the plain language of the amendment that it
could mean anything else."
The only remaining step for the three desperate lawmakers
would be to appeal to the state Supreme Court, but such an
appeal would take too long to save the jobs of the first group of
20 senators, including Byars and Price. (Chambers will be term-
limited in 2008.)
If legislators truly are public servants, it should not be too much
to ask that these servants respect the wishes of those they serve.
Apparently oblivious to the clear wishes of the voters and
lamenting as if the world were coming to an end, Price said,
"There is no way to save the first class of 20." Byars,
commenting on a possible Supreme Court appeal said,
"Hopefully it will be helpful to our colleagues two years from
now."
There are legislators in Washington and across the country that
stand before the cameras with polished faces and perfect hair
talking about their selfless public service, but like Byars,
Chambers and Price, many are simply more interested serving
themselves.
Jan A. Larson publishes a weekly commentary, "What is the
Deal?" at the Pie of Knowledge
OpinionEditorials, American Daily, ChronWatch, The
Conservative Voice, Capitol Hill Coffee House and NewsBull.
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