Term Limits: The Ties That Bind Too Tightly

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The group has aggressively targeted Washington's Fifth Congressional District. Republican George Nethercutt promised to step down in 2000 when he ran in 1994 and successfully lobbed the term-limit issue against veteran congressman Tom Foley, then Speaker of the House. But now Nethercutt is reportedly having second thoughts about stepping down. To help him make up his mind, U.S. Term Limits has launched a major TV ad campaign. It compares Nethercutt to three other politicians and their promises: Richard Nixon's "I am not a crook," George Bush's "Read my lips" and Bill Clinton's "I did not have sexual relations with that woman."

Whatever may be going through Nethercutt's mind, others who are reconsidering their pledge not to run are especially sensitive to the accusation of hypocrisy. Representative Tillie Fowler of Florida, one of the wafflers for 2000, insists she still supports term limits. "What is keeping her from committing herself to step down at the moment," stresses Kristin Accipiter, her press secretary, "is her leadership role and whether she can accomplish what she wants in the time left. She has no interest beyond running only one more time, if she runs."

Fowler is the vice chairman of the House Republican Conference and the highest-ranking woman in the House GOP leadership. She is learning, as others have, that in any organization it takes time to climb the ladder and achieve a position of influence. And once at the top, it takes even more time to direct that influence into real change.

That is essentially what Scott McInnis learned. The Colorado Republican has overstayed the three terms he pledged to serve in the House in 1992, and he plans to run again in 2000. "He experienced a bit of a learning curve when he got here," says his press secretary Will Bos. "It became apparent that only through seniority could Colorado hold its own against a big state like California." Sticking it out got him a seat on the powerful tax-writing Ways and Means Committee. "The appointment made him only the third member from Colorado in 40 years to sit on that committee," says Bos.

McInnis also learned another important fact: Voters don't always do what they say. Though he received criticism for dumping his term-limit pledge in 1998, he was reelected with 70 percent of the vote. National Republican Congressional Committee spokesperson Schroeder has come to realize the importance of this voter schizophrenia. "Term limits resonate well," she says, "but it is not a kitchen-table issue. In the end, most people like their own member of Congress." In retrospect, she says, "people in 1994 voted against the Washington politics of the day when they went Republican -- they weren't voting for term limits."

Which is really just another way of saying that people were voting in favor of the only term limit that counts, the one the founders of the nation enshrined in the Constitution: elections. The ballot box, as upheld by the American voter, may simply have declared itself to be the term-limit mechanism that works -- and works best.

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