Term limits, or limiting the number of terms that an elected official can serve in an office, is a subject that many feel strongly about.
While I have heard good arguments on both sides of the issue, today I want to share some thoughts about what term limits have done to our local city council.
City representatives used to stand for election every two years. Some people thought that those terms were too short — representatives had to spend time and money getting elected too often.
Now they are elected for four years and cannot serve more than ten (one could be elected to fill the last two years of a vacant slot, then get elected two more times).
Does this make them more vulnerable to powerful outside influences? Do they feel the need to build some long-lasting monument to their public service?
Some will argue that even serving their first four years without having to face the public is too long. Recently it has been the second four year term that has emboldened some of our representatives.
Most of the recent activism from council has come from representatives who cannot run again. They don’t need to listen to the voters any more in order to be re-elected. They cannot be re-elected. In their last term they seem to invoke their self-professed moral responsibility to do what is right, not what the voters want.
Cicero likes to kid Brutus about how he allegedly imposed term limits on Julius Caesar after he declared himself “emperor for life”. Thankfully that does not happen much anymore.
I do think that if we had shorter terms (as we used to) and allowed the representatives the hope of keeping their quality of life positions during good behavior that we would have a more responsible city council.
In the mean time we have the mess we have.
Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty.
Cato
elpasospeak 
It’s been said a million times before, but bears repeating. “Term limits are already built into the system”. That’s why we have elections, and those elections DO have consequences.
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l hate to bust your chops Mr. C, but it seems/feels like we’re always voting for something in this town at least 700 times a year. Besides, do you really believe that this motley crew that makes up the CC, wouldn’t get elected/re-elected if we had 2 year terms? Of course the typical brain-dead 915er would continue to support this nonsense. You’ve mentioned that some Reps. aren’t doing what the voters want them to do, please explain to what you are referring to. Most of the people in this town think that becoming even more bankrupt-ier is true “progress.” This is the same group of imbeciles who whined about giving CC a higher salary (a liveable wage for a full-time job which might attract more people running for council) and then 3 seconds later, supported the more expensive, less accountable City Manager monstrosity. Now if you’ll excuse me, l better chow-down on some din din, otherwise l might start getting testy!
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This same thought process played out when it was 2-year terms – we had many CC reps and Mayors that lasted through 4 2-year terms and did whatever they wanted their last 2 years. It was harder to recall CC then because you couldn’t recall the first 6 months or the last 6 months of their term. At least with 4-year terms you get 2-3 shots to recall. Hey – it took 16 years to term-limit Reyes.
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