HERE’S THE THEORY: Get enough members of Congress voluntarily to limit themselves to six years in the House or twelve in the Senate, and you will produce a long-overdue revolution in Washington. A conservative revolution, that is. The new members won’t be careerists, won’t be inclined to cool their heels and wait until they’ve got seniority to try to get something done, and won’t defer to the Washington establishment or the press.
Instead, they’ll be like the folks already in Congress who’ve limited their terms: Republicans Joe Scarborough of Florida, Steve Largent of Oklahoma, and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina. They’ll be right-wing bombthrowers bent on slashing government and cutting taxes. The question is how to stack Congress with these people. The answer is to force incumbents and challengers to impose limits on themselves and either abide by them or alienate voters and lose elections. The next major test of this strategy comes in the Republican primary in Pennsylvania on May 19 involving Bill Goodling, chairman of the House Education Committee, and his challenger, Charles Gerow, a self-limiter.
The drive for self-limits is actually a fallback position. For years, term- limiters lobbied for a constitutional amendment to restrict congressional terms. But it didn’t pass, and supporters of term limits have concluded it never will. “We have learned the hard way that the lifers of both parties speak sweetly and do nothing,” says Eric O’Keefe, president of Americans for Limited Terms. “A Congress of career legislators will never — repeat, never – – approve an amendment that would usher in a Congress of citizen-legislators.” For them, the opportunities for “wielding power, bending others to your will, and enriching yourself and your pet interests are wider than ever before.” Also, the courts were not sympathetic, even barring voters from using statewide referendums to require their members of Congress to vote for term limits.
A year ago, O’Keefe wrote a memo to term-limits activists urging them to abandon the pursuit of legislation. He followed up with a full-blown treatise that explained why getting candidates to self-limit would suffice. “Our goal is not a term-limits amendment to the Constitution, but a representative Congress,” he wrote. “To get there, we must throw the political class out of its base in the central institution of the central government — the Congress. . . . The fundamental question of national politics in modern America is, should we have self-government by citizens, or rule by career politicians?”
The first step in the new strategy was to change the pledge that candidates are urged to sign. In 1992 and 1994, they were asked to commit themselves to vote for a term-limits amendment. In 1996, they were urged to do so again, plus to promise to limit themselves to three terms in the House or two in the Senate. For 1998, the pledge consists solely of a vow to self-limit. It ” offers voters the opportunity to head off the process where ambitious politicians pose as ordinary citizens long enough to get entrenched in office, and then spend a career promoting the political class,” O’Keefe says. Both his group and U.S. Term Limits adopted the new strategy.
The next step was to pick races in which to apply the strategy. As luck would have it, a special election was scheduled for the congressional district in Santa Barbara, Calif., last March. The Republican candidate, Tom Bordonaro, declined to sign the pledge, but Lois Capps, the Democratic candidate and widow of former representative Walter Capps, signed it. Term- limiters spent $ 300,000 for TV ads and direct mail backing her and attacking him. She won. And even if term limits was not solely responsible for her victory, the issue played a big role. It also was instrumental in the Republican primary in Illinois in March for the seat being vacated by Rep. Harris Fawell. Conservative Peter Roskam refused to self-limit and lost to moderate Judy Biggert, who signed the pledge.
For conservatives, the downside in both races was that their favorites lost. But conservative candidates may have learned a lesson: Refusing to self- limit is risky. “Voters have found a way to express their anti-politician, anti-big-government frustration with term limits,” says Howie Rich of U.S. Term Limits. “The truth is, it’s the only way.” Term limits are popular. Since 1990, 41 of 49 statewide referendums on term limits have passed. Roughly three-fourths of voters want limits on congressional terms.
For now, the term-limits movement is focusing on competitive congressional races. O’Keefe insists enough self-limited House members will be elected this fall to form a term-limits caucus in the House next year. It could be pivotal in curbing congressional pay, pensions, and committee budgets. The biggest boost to term limits would be a primary victory for Gerow, a lawyer and social conservative, over Goodling, 70, in the district around York. Though Americans for Limited Terms plans as expensive an effort as in the California contest, Gerow is still a long-shot. He got 45 percent against Goodling in 1996, but Goodling has wisely gotten more conservative since then. First elected in 1974, Goodling says he’s willing to sign the self-limit pledge, but the term-limiters won’t have him. They’re mad because he said he’d vote for a term-limits amendment, then didn’t, and declared his 1994 race his last. Obviously it wasn’t. But maybe the May 19 primary will turn out to be. If so, self-imposed term limits will have arrived.
Fred Barnes is executive editor of THE WEEKLY STANDARD.
