Hope Mills Town Commissioners tiptoed way out on a limb earlier this month. They voted 3 to 2 to establish staggered 4-year-terms for board members, beginning with this fall’s election cycle. The vote came despite the fact that town voters turned down the same proposal 7 years ago. To no one’s great surprise, some angry constituents are threatening a petition drive to put the issue to the voters yet again on the November ballot, citing a need to keep the elected officials more immediately responsive to public pressures.
That is an understandable sentiment, but it may not be the most thoughtful and productive one. The School of Government at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill has this to say about how most municipalities and counties in our state handle member terms.
“All terms, both for county commissioners and for city council members, are for two years or four, with the larger number of governing boards having four year terms. Most boards with four year terms stagger elections so that about half the members are elected every two years; of all the changes made to governing boards in recent years, initiating a staggered four-year term has been the most prevalent. This staggering ensures a degree of continuity in county and municipal affairs and a constant level of experience.”
Government at every level is complicated, convoluted, contradictory, and just plain difficult. It takes time to learn the ins and outs, if that is even possible. Issues and projects can take years to settle and complete. It makes little sense to risk the possibility of electing a totally novice board, whose members are more likely to be swayed by the loudest, least thoughtful constituents and the professional, though unelected, governmental staff.
That said, the 3 town commissioners who voted for longer, staggered terms care enough about Hope Mills to put their political futures in significant jeopardy.
Another related issue is term limits, especially at the Congressional level. We have all seen elderly electeds who freeze mid-sentence, cannot remember what was just said in a committee meeting, and are guided from place to place by hale and hearty junior staffers. Some states have indeed enacted term limits for legislators, though doing so for members of Congress would require a Constitutional amendment, a much higher bar than a legislative vote.
That said, support for term limits is also understandable, though it comes with even more complicated governmental issues than those facing a town of 18-thousand residents. Former electeds, particularly those who have served in Congress, readily admit that it takes a term or two to learn the ropes, make allies, and to begin being effective.
I once met a man, the leader of his party in the Arizona House of Representatives, a term-limited body. He was in his second elected term and readily admitted that he had little idea what he was doing, and that he would be “retiring” shortly when his term ended. He made the point that his legislature, and I suspect all those that have term limits, are actually controlled not by the electeds but by the professional staff for whom there are no term limits.
Americans live, at least for the moment, in a representative democracy, one in which the people elected to public office do what they believe is best for the community, whether that is Hope Mills, North Carolina, or the United States. Their decisions may or may not be exactly what the loudest among us are shouting at them.
That is why we should elect thoughtful and compassionate representatives, not people who merely spout the partisan positions of whatever party they might be.