Which career politician told the world, back in February of 2000, that he was “all for” term limits “right now,” but that “in ’04 when I’m term-limited I’ll probably be scraping my nails across the desk as they drag me out” . . . ? Who said that term limits, quote, “presented Ohio with a struggle between the past and the fast-approaching future”?
Yep, Ohio House Speaker Larry Householder, just before term limits on the previous speaker paved the way for Householder. But now he has changed his mind. Thanks to term limits, there are 45 freshman in the Ohio House now.
The problem? They’re too naive. They think the taxpayers’ hard-earned money is something to be frugal about. “I don’t understand budgets,” says one of those Gomer-Pyle-type freshmen, State Representative Jim Carmichael. Carmichael reports: “I was talking with a fellow member about an item, and he said, ‘Well, it’s only $104 million.’ . . . I thought ten bucks was a lot of money!”
Well, so do I, Mr. Carmichael. And if term limits can foster the novel insight that $100 million should not be spent lightly, that’s just fine by me. Householder disagrees. Now that he’s the Speaker, he wants to hold onto the House by hosing term limits by slapping another four years onto his tenure.
Next thing you know, Householder and his buddies will want to trash term limits altogether. We support term limits because we actually like democracy. We want that “fast-approaching future” Mr. Householder used to be eager to meet . . . more than once every couple of decades.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.