Term limits (with other reforms) still make sense

Peter Jensen’s many years of covering the Maryland General Assembly are much appreciated, but they’ve clouded his perspective on the issue of term limits (“The myth of legislative term limits. Hint: They hurt more than help,” Feb. 23).

None of us wants to see the institutional knowledge of the late Sen. John Cade (or the Mikes — recently deceased Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller and House Speaker Michael E. Busch) lost, but we’re buying that expertise with conflict of interest and extremism. That’s too high a price to pay.

There’s a lot to be said for sending legislators back out into the real world after their three terms are done to spend four or six years making their way among the rest of us, then re-entering politics if they wish to do so and voters see fit to approve it.

As it is, career office-holding makes for daily conflicts of interest between one’s career and serving the public good. Worse, among those with less gravitas than the likes of Messrs. Cade, Busch or Miller, it encourages extremism by tying an officeholder to his or her political base.

To those of us who value a civil society and believe that politics is, in fact, the art of compromise, extremism is enemy number one.

Establish term limits, redistrict based on population (not party affiliation), and adopt ranked choice voting. These three mechanisms can, together, restore the middle ground in our current political landscape.