Nearly three decades after Arkansas became one of the first states to cap how long someone can serve in the Legislature, lawmakers may find out just how far voters are willing to go to limit their time in office thanks to competing measures on next year’s ballot.
In the legislative session that just wrapped up, Arkansas lawmakers sent voters a proposal that would rework the term limits on House and Senate members for the second time in the past several years. It’s a pre-emptive strike against another proposal a group is trying to put on the 2020 ballot that would impose the strictest term limits in the U.S.
“This is just about good government,” said Republican Sen. Alan Clark, who sponsored the legislative-backed proposal, which would remove the current 16-year cap and instead require politicians who have served 12 straight years to sit out of the Legislature for four before running again. The competing measure sets a 10-year lifetime term limit on legislators, and Clark says it “would devastate state government and people would never know it.”
But opponents of Clark’s measure scoff at it being called a limit, noting that lawmakers could serve an unlimited number of years, albeit with breaks.
“We’re calling that the lifetime politician amendment and that will be a very easy sell,” said Tom Steele, chairman of Arkansas Term Limits, which plans to start circulating petitions for the 10-year cap within the next month.
Term limits for legislators and other officials gained popularity in the 1990s. Fifteen states have adopted term limits for their lawmakers, though only six of those are lifetime caps, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. California and Oklahoma have the strictest limits, with 12-year lifetime caps on legislators. Arkansas’ 16-year limit was part of a campaign finance measure voters approved in 2014. Previously, lawmakers could serve three two-year terms in the House and two four-year terms in the Senate — a total of 14 years.
