Legislature put term limit constitutional amendment proposal on ballot

LANSING » Michigan voters in November will decide whether to revise some of the country’s strictest legislative term limits and require state elected officials to report information about their finances to avoid conflicts of interest.

The Legislature on Tuesday unveiled the proposed constitutional amendment and placed it on the statewide ballot within hours, with no debate or notice. The move saved a ballot committee of business and labor groups from having to collect roughly 425,000 voter signatures, enabling backers to shift their attention to persuading voters to back the measure in the fall.

Michigan’s 30-year-old term limits law, embedded in the state constitution, allows legislators to serve no more than 14 years, including three two-year House terms and two four-year Senate terms. The amendment — which the House and Senate passed 76-28 and 26-6 respectively — would allow them to serve up to 12 years: six two-year House terms, three four-year Senate terms or a combination.

Supporters said it would enable new lawmakers — particularly in the House, where the speaker and committee chairs have only two or four years of experience before leading — to focus on their job and build relationships instead of immediately looking to run for the Senate or find work outside the Legislature.

“It’s a crash course. I came in with 60-some brand-new people out of 110. We had a leader who had only been in the chamber himself for two years. It is not a practical way to run a legislative body. As you go around the country, you’ll see a lot of examples of legislative bodies that function a lot better than our House of Representatives,” said Sen. Ed McBroom, a Vulcan Republican who previously served in the House.

Opponents, who are mobilizing against the measure, said it is being mischaracterized as a way to improve term limits when it would weaken them by increasing how long how long legislators could be in a chamber and give termlimited members a chance to return to Lansing.

Patrick Anderson, who authored the 1992 initiative, criticized the Legislature for hastily approving the new amendment with no debate and notice. He called it an “ambush.”

“Whether you like term limits or not, this is a disgrace,” he said, vowing that it “is not going to slip unnoticed into the voting booth.”

AL GOLDIS — THE ASSOCIATED PRESS The Michigan House meets at the state Capitol in Lansing. The Michigan House voted Tuesday, to put before voters a constitutional amendment to revise the state’s legislative term limits law and require state elected officials to disclose their personal financial information.