Panel OKs plan to dump term limits

Democrat calls governor a bully

HELENA - A referendum to eliminate term limits on Montana legislators cleared a committee Saturday, with a leading Democratic senator saying term limits have enabled Gov. Brian Schweitzer to "bully" lawmakers.

Republicans have long said that Schweitzer uses strong-armed tactics with Democrats and Republicans to get his way.

That's why comments from Sen. Jesse Laslovich, D-Anaconda, caused a stir.

"Sooner or later, I think we have to stand up for ourselves," he said. "The governor says we're up here eating steaks and drinking whiskey. And we're going to let him get away with that? We have a governor who says for the first 60 days, we were working for lobbyists rather than the people of Montana. And we're going to let him get away with that?"

And then he said what no other Democrat has. "We don't have the spine to stand up to the executive? With term limits, that's what's happened. We're intimidated - by a bully."

On a 6-4 vote, the State Administration Committee passed the bill, which would give voters a chance to reconsider term limits in November. Voters in 1992 approved a ballot measure that limited state lawmakers to serving eight years in a 16-year period.

In a 2004 ballot measure, voters overwhelmingly voted to keep the limits in place. More than 136,000 people voted to extend term limits over a longer period, but 299,000 voted to maintain the limits adopted in 1992.

Many legislators and veteran Capitol watchers are convinced that term limits have had a profound impact on the effectiveness of the legislative branch by weeding out the most competent and experienced lawmakers. They claim that the Legislature is now more vulnerable to the direction of inexperienced lawmakers, the state bureaucracy, lobbyists and the executive branch.

Sen. Steve Gallus, D-Butte, said the bill originally was written for a referendum that would maintain term limits on currently serving legislators. But that restriction was amended out of the bill.

"If we're going to do this, we're going to do it for everybody," he said.

Gallus said he supports the elimination of term limits mainly because he believes they were initially passed as part of a national movement aimed at imposing term limits on the U.S. Congress.

"Here we are, 15 years later and there no term limits on Congress," he said, but there are term limits on citizen legislators are not highly paid, full-time lawmakers.

Gallus said Laslovich's remarks were "right on the money."

"He thinks the executive branch has gotten too powerful with term limits and that bureaucrats and lobbyists have gotten too powerful, and I agree with that," Gallus said.

Reporter Jim Mann may be reached at 758-4407 or by e-mail at jmann@dailyinterlake.com