Term limits fail to live up to promisesMore evidence is piling up that while term limits are bad for most states, they're especially bad for Nebraska.

More evidence is piling up that while term limits are bad for most states, they're especially bad for Nebraska.

According to a study released Tuesday by the National Conference of State Legislatures, by 2004, term limits in 13 states had forced 1,200 lawmakers out of office.

But, while many of them ran for their state's other assembly, no such opportunity exists in Nebraska, with our Unicameral Legislature and small pool of potential lawmakers.

In several of the other 21 states where term limits were imposed between 1990 and 2000, term limits are a thing of the past.

Courts in Massachusetts, Oregon, Washington and Wyoming overturned the limits, lawmakers in Utah and Idaho repealed theirs, and a lawsuit challenging Nebraska's law is pending before the State Supreme Court.

"The difference under term limits is that these legislatures no longer have a small group of long-serving members whose leadership and expertise can guide a largely inexperienced legislature," the report said.

And, lawmakers who may be limited to as few as six years in office spend an inordinate amount of time jockeying for key leadership positions instead of doing the work for which they were elected.

The power vacuum that results from term limits leads to more power being transferred to the executive branch, legislative staff and lobbyists.

"Our legislators have lost a key resource: the knowledge and experience that comes with lengthy service," Karl Kurtz, director of state services at NCSL and a lead researcher in the study told The Associated Press.

And, one of the promises of term limit proponents, more diversity in legislative bodies, has proved to be false. According to a survey of the 15 states with term limits, the ones with an increase in minorities are states like California, Florida, Arizona, Michigan and Arkansas, where the legislatures simply mirror the population in general.

Unfortunately, term limits are hard to repeal, because voters with low expectations don't see the disadvantages they cause.

"I think the voters go: 'Well, the world didn't collapse, we're getting the same kind of mediocre mix of laws we were getting before,'" said Bruce Cain, political science professor at the University of California, Berkeley.

Nebraska has yet to feel the full impact of term limits, but by the time we do, we'll long for the day when the only limit to public service was the approval of the voters.