HE'S . . . BACK! Tim Jacob, long-time champion of term limits, says he's working on still another amendment to Arkansas' already over-amended state constitution, one to make term limits for state legislators even shorter--10 years' total service in the House and Senate instead of the current 16 in most cases. But at least Mr. Jacob doesn't propose to fool with the halfway decent pay raises just proposed for the state's prosecutors, who need all the support we the people can give them. Not just because they have a full docket but so they'll stick with being prosecutors instead of aiming for better-paying judicial offices.
Mr. Jacob's resentment at the way term limits were extended last year is understandable; many of us shared it. The longer terms were included in a package of ethical reforms and snuck into law under the name of reform in general. But at least the principle of limited terms was preserved, and those needlessly complicated ways to pay our lawmakers' travel and per-diem expenses were eliminated in favor of a straight salary.
The state's voters seemed satisfied with the new, easier-to-understand and simpler-to-administer way to pay our public servants. Isn't it time to gracefully accept victory or defeat or the compromise between them that the new term limits represent?
That approach would also have the great advantage of accepting the will of the people as expressed at the ballot box. Isn't it time to move on to more pressing issues instead of returning to this one again and again for only a marginal gain at best?
Not for a career reformer like Mr. Jacob it isn't. He says he's hoping to raise still more cash from U.S. Term Limits--which spent more than $550,000 in a vain effort to beat the new, longer term limits last year--in order to push for still another referendum on the issue of term limits. But for some of us, reform is a goal, not an everlasting source of still more funds for the reformers to spend. Reform ought to have a higher purpose than just keeping the reformers in business.
Editorial on 05/06/2015