New term limits will make part-time city council members fulltime fundraisers.

Full-time fundraising and four-year terms make for powerful incumbents at City Hall.

The job of city councilman may technically be part-time, but changes at City Hall threaten to transform our elected officials into full-time fundraisers.

On Election Day, voters expanded term limits from two to four years by passing Proposition 2. This will give elected officials more time to study and implement longterm plans that Houston needs to balance the budget, fix roads and keep our city growing. It also gives incumbent politicians an unabated four years to raise campaign funds.

Before this year’s election cycle, expanding term limits wouldn’t have had any major impact on campaign fundraising. Houston voters passed an anticorruption measure back in 1992 that only permitted soliciting contributions from the February before an election until a few months after it concluded. Whether politicians served two years or four, the fundraising timeline would have been the same.

However, the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in the 2010 Citizens’ United case has rendered unconstitutional campaign finance laws in cities and states across the nation. Houston is no exception: Our blackout period on fundraising was knocked down by a federal court at the beginning of the year.

Now City Hall faces the unexplored consequences of mixing full-time fundraising with extended terms, threatening to give incumbent politicos an unprecedented upper hand over challengers.

In this post-Citizens United legal landscape, how can voters maintain control over the democratic process?

For one, they can head to the voting booth. This past Election Day, plenty of citizens used the off-year ballot as an opportunity to bolster or implement local campaign finance regulations. Voters in Maine strengthened the state’s Clean Elections Act by boosting public funding for campaigns and enacting penalties for those who break campaign finance law. Voters in San Francisco put in place a new lobbying reform law that requires anyone spending more than $2,500 in a month on lobbying activities to register with the city’s ethics commission (“The battle over campaign finance reform is changing,” Page A1, Sunday).

Chronicle reporter Mike Morris documented this past June that Houston’s City Hall is lousy with lobbyists who fail to abide by local registration laws. Perhaps our rules could use some sharper teeth.

The most striking campaign finance reform came out of Seattle, where voters approved a unique system of so-called “democracy vouchers.” Beginning in 2017, each registered voter will receive four, $25 certificates that they can donate to the municipal campaigns of their choice. However, the donations come with strings attached. To receive the funds, candidates have to participate in three debates and also accept lower contribution and spending limits.

This policy will both encourage candidates to build a broad base of voters while also diluting the influence of large individual donations.

The ability to raise funds shouldn’t be a prerequisite to running for office, and Seattle’s experiment in democracy aims to empower citizens to balance the financial scales.

More than 20 years ago, Houstonians knew how money could corrupt politics. Now their protections have been removed by the courts just as Houstonians voted to expand term limits. There’s four years until the next city election cycle. The clock is ticking while a new generation of citizens faces the challenge of keeping City Hall clean.

More than 20 years ago, Houstonians knew how money could corrupt politics. Now their protections have been removed by the courts just as Houstonians voted to expand term limits.