• The Clock Strikes 12 in Colorado
• Time's Up! Michigan Legislature says farewell to experience

The term-limits law has just about wiped out the top legislative leadership in the Centennial State.

By Angela Dire

At 31, Representative Todd Saliman of Boulder looks as if he belongs in a high school honors course rather than on the Joint Budget Committee of the Colorado General Assembly. But the legislature's most powerful committee is exactly where he belongs-put there last May by House Democrats to replace one of the many veteran lawmakers leaving office because of term limits.

To prepare for the job, Saliman has observed nearly every budget committee meeting for the past year and a half and has studied under the tutelage of his predecessor, Representative Gil Romero-an eight-year committee veteran.

"I think I'll be able to hit the ground running," says Saliman. Then with a laugh, he adds, "The more you learn, the more you know that you don't know anything."

But ready or not, pupil must become master. Under Colorado term limits, the clock never stops ticking, and it still amazes Saliman how late the hour is. "I know that when I was a new member, I relied heavily on the senior members for advice and perspective," he says. "Now, the new members are going to be relying on me. And I've only been here four years."

More than one-fourth of the entire General Assembly-27 members-are leaving. But that's nothing new. Fact is, Colorado voters have never really had to "throw the bums out." Most move on themselves-either to higher office or back to private life. A part-time job that pays less than most school teachers make, legislating simply doesn't pay the bills. Every couple of years, anywhere between 20 and 40 seats open up in the two chambers.

So what is remarkable about the first great exodus under term limits is the roster itself-not how many are on it. It's a veritable Who's Who of the Legislature: the speaker of the House, the president of the Senate, majority leaders in both chambers as well as the House minority leader, four of the six budget committee members and more than half the 26 committee chairmen and chairwomen. They have been around as little as eight years and as long as 28. They're the keepers of the "institutional memory" that opponents of term limits worry will be lost in the shuffle-to higher office, back to private life or to the back chamber to join the lobbying corps. Obviously, they have has a hand in every major policy issue-from school finance to workers' compensation reform-either as sponsor or broker. No other departing group of lawmakers will ever again take with them as large a store of experience and credentials. Together, their years of experience total 346.

Under the law, no group will have the time to gain that experience. The constitutional amendmentpassed by 71 percent of voters in the 1990 election, limits the terms of legislators and members of the executive branch to no more than eight consecutive years.

It's impossible to say what the lasting effects will be. It's not as if the Colorado law is so severe that is sends legislators away forever after a few years in office-as do laws in seven of the 20 states with term limits. Elected officials may run again after sitting out one term-which is not an unlikely scenario if their successors are in the opposite party or in the opposite wing of the same party. The law also permits lawmakers who've reached their limit in one house to run for the other. They can go back and forth as many times as they want.

This year, seven House members are running for the Senate. And one senator who began his career in the House 12 years ago will try to go back there. So there is likely to be more than a few new senators who remember life B.T.L.-before term limits-and who will be around to tell about it well into the next century.

If such migration becomes a trend, it could perpetuate exactly what proponents of term limits wanted to prevent: powerful career politicians. And it could make for a stronger, more experienced Senate and more tension between the chambers.

"I think you will begin to see an imbalance as people leave the House and move into the Senate," says Majority Leader Jeff Wells who must leave the Senate this years. And is running for attorney general. "You're going to see individual senators of exceptionally strong will and influence. They'll have the institutional memory and the procedural knowledge-none of which their counterparts in the House will. You run the risk of these strong individuals pushing their own agenda."

Some say business at the statehouse has already changed. Through policymaking is always more contentious during an election cycle, this year it was particularly so because of the number of people scrambling for vacated seats. The political posturing played a role in the collapse of one of the session's most important issues: how to refund millions of dollars in state revenue to taxpayers. Now a lame-duck governor may call lame-duck legislators back for a special session to settle the issue this fall-after all their successors have been chosen.

Oddball or New Trend?

Normally, this would all be written off as an oddball political year. But under term limits, it may become typical. That's because the legislature will probably end up choosing new leadership every election cycle-or at lest every other cycle. Gone are the days when individuals spent six years grooming themselves for a position like House speaker and then another eight years in charge-as did Speaker Chuck Berry. Consider either of the two men vying to succeed him should Republicans keep their majority in the House: Representative Russell George will reach the end of his term in two years and Representative Andy McElhany in four. Then more ambitious unknowns will step forward to make their mark. 

"The legislature," says Berry, "is going to be a lot less predictable.

Just Watch the Budget Committee

How will the new unpredictability affect policy? One place where answers are sure to unfold is across the street from the Capitol in an elegant marble building with slender columns. It once housed the Colorado Supreme Court, but now is home to an institution nearly as sacrosanct in state government: the Joint Budget Committee.

Every major issue facing the state in the next few years- how to build more highways, schools and prisons and still refund millions in unused revenue to taxpayers under complicated spending limits-involves money and, therefore, the small but powerful JBC.

Unlike most other states, the General Assembly dominates the budget process, entrusting the state's purse strings to six lawmakers who toil round the calendar in a painstakingly detailed budget ritual. They include the Appropriations Committee chairs from the two houses as well as one majority and minority member from each. Every year, JBC members grill the heads of 20 different state agencies, one by one, making them defend their budget requests. Then every year, line by line, they set the figures for the state budget.

If there is any area of public policy where term limits could have an effect, observers say, it is on this committee. Its effectiveness hinges on what term limits are intended to discourage: legislators who stay for a long time.

"Definitely it's a place where you want people with longevity," says former Senator Mike Bird, who chaired the committee during the 1980s. "People who go on it almost never leave it voluntarily."

In the past, most members have had four years under their belts before they even get an appointment to the budget committee. Since 1979, the length of service on the committee averaged five years. But recently, that number has been increasing. On the current committee, half the members have eight or more years of tenure. And after years of studying the budget, many have become experts on particular state programs.

Because the committee is so small, spends so much time together and has its own staff and headquarters, members develop an intense loyalty that transcends party affiliations. Since Republicans control both houses of the legislature, they outnumber Democrats 2 to 1 on the committee. But when it comes time to defend the budget bill, members stand together to fend off amendments by their own party caucuses-and often prevail.

"When those six people close out that budget," says Senator Tillie Bishop, who has been in the Colorado General Assembly 27 years, "they almost sign in blood that they're going to stay together."

Plenty of lawmakers grumble about the power and influence invested in the JBC, yet when it comes time to pass the budget they challenge very little of the committee's work. This year, legislators tried to amend less than 1 percent of the $10.3 billion budget drafted by the committee.

House Speaker Berry says that the Taxpayer Bill of Rights, a complex constitutional amendment that limits state and local government spending, has forced rank-and-file lawmakers to defer more often to the judgment of budget committee members. "It doesn't leave a lot of room for maneuvering the budget," he said.

This past session, it began to hit home that four of the six JBC members-the most experienced-will be gone by the end of the year. Many began to question why new members hadn't been rotated into this important job to endure some continuity.

"I think what we should have done was swallow our pride two years ago and made some changes," says Representative Gary McPherson who plans to make a bid for House majority leader. "We could have an almost entirely new JBC. I think that's disastrous."

House leaders have tried to pass the mantle in other ways, but this was one instance when they hesitated: "It's kind of hard to take someone off who's been there when everyone's working well together," says JBC Chairman Tony Grampsas, who is leaving the committee after a decade.

But once term limits gain momentum, some say, it will be difficult to keep members on the committee for very long. Theoretically, the committee could preserve some of its longevity if members ran for the opposite house and then were re-appointed to the JBC. But those instances will be rare-only when there's a vacancy and they don't have to step on the toes of a fellow colleague.

Much of the power and responsibility may fall to the already influential JBC staff-who, as one observer once put it, "know where every body is buried, where ever 'i' is dotted and 't' is crossed."

"I feel very confident in our staff," says Senator Tom Blickensderfer, who-with four years of experience on the committee-could be the senior member next year. "They will be more than aware of the dilemmas and be sure to point them out to us.

Changing the System

But gradually rank-and-file lawmakers will begin to view the committee in a different light, says the speaker. "They're going to start saying, 'Why should I entrust this to six people when they don't understand the budget any better than I do?'"

The JBC chairman says the legislature will probably have to compensate for its inexperience by adopting a budgeting system in which more people have a say. Perhaps several committees will review budget requests from state agencies, he says, and the budget committee will act as "the balancing committee." "I don't think the JBC can continue to exist the way it does today," he says.

Some think that may not be so bad.

"It's like a kingdom," says Senate Minority Leader Michael Feeley, who has long been a critic of the insular system. "They're absolutely territorial and arrogant." Though no fan of term limits, Feeley, who is running for governor before his legislative time expires, admits term limits could have the unintended positive effect of opening up the budget process. "I think it gives us the best opportunity yet to change how we do business."

His colleagues Jim Rizzuto, who has represented the Senate Democrats on the JBC for the past 12 years, could not disagree more. He believes Colorado benefits from a strong, central group of lawmakers who have the time and knowledge to scrutinize the cost and efficiency of the state programs. "We're moving toward a more technocratic type of legislature where the people who make the decisions don't have much experience and rely on bureaucrats and lobbyists."

No doubt about that, most departing lawmakers say-at least the ones who don't plan to become lobbyists themselves

There are more than 500 registered lobbyists in Colorado-five for every one lawmaker.

"They will become much more powerful," says Senator Majority Leader Wells. "They will even be able to talk legislators into ideas that have been tried and failed."

As more experienced lawmakers leave, others say, lobbyists and bureaucrats who come from a narrow perspective will dominate public policy debates-overlooking the more complex and subtle gray areas in issues.

Representative Jeanne Adkins, a rare non-attorney Judiciary Committee chairman, takes a lot of experience with her when she leaves the House after 10 years. Adkins, who has been a key player in many areas of justice reform, points to the debate over criminal sentencing laws and how they affect the prison population. "I don't see a willingness on the part of new legislators to delve into this the way some of us have,"she says. "They're more willing to rely on those of us who've been here a while. So when we go, it leaves the debate in the hands of the district attorneys and the public defenders. Those who want to build more prisons and those who don't."

Already, she says, lobbyists are waiting in the wings to have a go at dismantling legislation such as the workers' compensation laws passed by the legislature in the early 1990's. "Next year, everyone who was involved in that will be gone," says Adkins who is making a bid for state treasurer. "And you will have a fresh slate of blank minds who will have no context for an issue that is so crucial to business and industry."

Strong Staff Important

Departing lawmakers say one way to counter inexperience is through a strong, nonpartisan legislative staff that can get new members up to speed and offer them some long-term perspective. This will be crucial, they say, since Colorado lawmakers don't have their own full-time professional aides to turn to for help.

House Speaker Berry said legislative leaders are trying to offer department heads financial incentives and perks to keep them. "Sometime after term limits passed, I remember sitting down and telling them, 'You guys are going to have to be the institutional memory.'"

Of the 113 employees who work for the legislature-running committees, drafting bills and analyzing budgets-some are more suited to the task than others. Although no department director has been in his job less than 10 years to a low of four.

Staff members have already instituted some changes aimed at making the learning curve easier for newcomers. A longer, meatier orientation process "gave my freshmen a good, heads-up start this year," says Majority Leader Norma Anderson, who must leave the House, but is running for Senate. A new technology program-with laptop computers for every legislator and an Intranet that can give them instant information on bills, fiscal notes and other legislative business-will also be in place next year.

Staff members also have a host of other things they plan to try: mock committee hearings to teach new members about procedure as well as issues, more policy papers explaining issues and the use of interim study committees while the legislature is out of session.

But as lawmakers lean more heavily on staff for information and advice, it raises a whole set of new issues for a nonpartisan staff: How to be helpful without crossing the line into policy making, and how to help new lawmakers without offending them.

"We've been doing a lot of work about what our roles are-what we are expected to do and what we are not expected to do," says Doug Brown, director of the Office of Legislative legal Services. "How to talk to members in a way that is helpful to tem without throwing our knowledge around like we're intimidating."

One thing is certain as this experiment in term limits begins: It will take more work to accomplish less. Staff members and those in the legislature who will be left to assume the mantle of leadership are ready for lots of starts and stops.

"I'm not sure the result will be much different," says Charlie Brown, head of the body's research arm, the Legislative Council. "It's just going to be more painful getting there."

What They're Going to Do

Although a few Colorado lawmakers ousted under term limits are undecided about what they will do next and a handful say they will return to private life, many want to move on in politics. Six representatives will try to become senators and a senator is running to go back to the House. Some lawmakers are seeking higher office, including one running for the U.S. House, one for the U.S. Senate, and one for governor. Another wants to be attorney general. Two legislators want to be their county clerk. Four others aimed for another office, but didn't make the primary ballot.

Time's Up!BACK TO TOP

Let the experiment begin as the Michigan Legislature says farewell to experience.

By Dawson Bell

In 1975, David Hollister was a 33-year-old first termer in the Michigan House of Representatives when he watched in helpless frustration as his grandfather struggled in vain to end unwanted life support after two strokes.

In 1990, with 15 years of experience, acumen and clout under his belt, Hollister finally persuaded his fellow lawmakers that the state of Michigan needed to authorize the living will. Today, citizens of this state can execute documents that instruct hospitals and physicians to end extraordinary treatment in the event they are struck by serious injury or illness.

But what if Representative Hollister (mayor of the city of Lansing since 1993) had been shown the door after six years? What if the 1992 voter-enacted limits on the terms of House members had been in effect two decades earlier? The short answer is: Nobody knows.

Certainly, the grassroots term limits movement that swept Michigan and the rest of the country in the early 1990s wasn't aimed at maintaining feeding tubes in the terminally ill. Backers of the Michigan proposal almost never cited specific legislation in their campaign to change the state's constitution. Rather, their message was: These people have been hanging around too long. They don't represent you anymore. They don't understand how you live. Voters responded to the message; the amendment was approved (58 percent to 42 percent). And in 1998, 64 members of the House are ineligible to run again. Members of the Senate who were in the middle of a term in 1992 may run for one more four-year term this year. But by 2002, maximum experience in the Michigan Legislature will be measurable on the fingers of two hands (thumbs don't count).

Without question, the impact on the class photographs will be dramatic. But as the reality sets in, policymakers and policy activists also are beginning to wonder what happens to the hard questions. 

"It took me 16 years to get that bill enacted," says Hollister. "It was a process of public education", he says. "If you have a six-year limit, I just don't see how people can dig in, learn the details, develop a sophisticated understanding of the players and build the coalition you need to get it passed. You need a champion."

Clearly, what made the difference in the effort to enact a living will statute was Hollister's tenacity. Session after session he introduced legislation, organized the advocates for action, negotiated with the opposition and accumulated the kind of political chits that ultimately translated into votes.

Similarly, former Representative and Senator Nick Smith, a Republican from southern Michigan, made a habit of marking the opening of each new session (he was elected to the House twice and the Senate three times) with a proposal to repeal Michigan's inheritance tax. In the 1980s with opposition from a Democratic governor and a Democratically controlled House, he never made much progress. But it is difficult to calculate the psychological impact of Smith's seemingly endless crusade.

In 1995, the political dynamic changed, the Legislature passed and the governor signed a bill to phase out the inheritance tax. A credible argument can be made that it never would have happened without Smith's persistence. But, in fact, it did happen without his presence. Smith left the Michigan Legislature in 1992 after a successful bid for Congress.

Perhaps even more difficult to measure is the impact term limits will have on broader, sweepingly complex issues like education reform and tax policy. Here, too, the Michigan experience may be instructive.

Understanding the System

In 1993, Michigan state government figuratively leapt off the cliff in the quest to change public education and finance.

After nearly two decades of rising taxpayer dissatisfaction with both the property tax burden of paying for K-12 education and the performance of the schools they were paying for, the Michigan Legislature took about 48 hours to demolish the status quo.

It started innocently enough as a partisan bidding war between Republicans and Democrats in the Senate over property tax relief. Michigan Republicans had been running for office and attempting to legislate for years as the enemy of property taxes. Democrats had been countering with proposals to offset property tax cuts with increases in other taxes. A variety of tax-cutting ballot proposals had been dutifully offered to the electorate and, with one exception (a tax-limiting plan that was adopted in 1978 but widely viewed as ineffective by the 1990s), defeated.

Governor John Engler, elected in large part on a promise to enact substantial property tax relief, put one on the ballot in 1992. It won the support of 41 percent of the electorate.

As recently as a month and a half earlier in June 1993, a complicated, bipartisan proposal to cut property taxes and raise the state sales tax had been presented to the voters and was convincingly quashed (54 percent to 46 percent). War-weary lawmakers were saying they didn't know which way to turn.

But as Senate Republicans mustered for one more sortie into 20 percent property tax reduction territory one steamy night in July, Senate Democrats countered with a complete elimination of the century-old foundation for school funding in Michigan. The Republicans said, "Why not?" Two days later, it was gone.

And the Michigan Legislature was staring at the daunting task of figuring out how to open the doors to more than 2 million schoolchildren about 14 months hence. What they came up with was a complex, interest-balancing proposal to restore most of the funding with an increase in the sales tax while enacting an ambitious new regime of charter schools and increased competition. The voters bought into the idea in a statewide ballot proposal in 1994. Four years later, the public view of Proposal A remains relatively positive. The hated property tax is lower; education appears to be more energized.

But what made fundamental change possible was the ability of seasoned lawmakers and a governor who had served in state office continuously since 1972 to understand how the system operated and fashion workable reform. Virtually all of the key players in what became Proposal A wouldn't have been around in a term-limited environment.

"I don't know what would have happened in 1993 if we were already living with term limits," says House Republican Leader Ken Sikkema, who opposed the term limits ballot proposal.

"Probably nothing."

One of the lessons Sikkema said he learned over the years as a member of a downtrodden

minority caucus that won control of the House and then lost it again, was that "the process of failing teaches you how to get something done.

"In another job, you learn from your mistakes. But now, nobody is going to be here long enough to learn from failure," he says.

On the other hand, the decades-long runup to Proposal A in Michigan coincided almost exactly with the phenomenon that led to the passage of term limits, i.e., the development of a generation of lawmakers who went to Lansing and didn't come back. The Legislature that put the successful proposal on the 1994 ballot was among the most experienced in Michigan history. It could be argued that when lawmakers severed the Gordian knot a short time later, they acted less from vision than from a political gamesmanship born of desperation. Such a view is hardly a ringing endorsement of unlimited terms.

Sikkema acknowledges that more rapid turnover at the statehouse won't directly affect problems in the real world that lawmakers are called on to address. Michigan taxpayers who were railing against the onerous burden of supporting a school system that didn't seem to work weren't asking whether their Legislature had enough experience to do something about it; they wanted action. Maybe legislators elected to go to Lansing, cut taxes, fix schools and come back home in six years would have done it a lot faster. "Maybe I'll be wrong," says Sikkema. "Let's face it, it's an experiment. I'm not making predictions...just registering concern."

Chronic Issues

If it is hard to imagine how a term-limited Legislature would have tackled school finance and tax reform, it is even harder to guess what they will do with chronic issues that have not been addressed. Part of that difficulty lies in defining those issues. Democratic candidates for election in 1998, especially challengers to Republican Governor Engler, are expected to make much of the relatively tattered state of Michigan roads. Engler's lack of vision, they say, has allowed the state's infrastructure to crumble. And motorists have shown increasing restiveness in recent years about bone-jarring and suspension-shattering potholes.

But a sizable slice of the electorate also is wary about expensive new programs to fix roads. Michigan raised its gas tax by 4 cents a gallon last year. A significant repair program (bolstered by increased federal funding) is under way. Many voters are likely to instinctively reach to protect their wallets when they hear politicians say they have a better plan.

Speculation about how a term-limited Legislature will address roads or a host of other problems is hampered by the use of multiplying hypotheticals, of trying to apply unknowns to other unknowns.

Take land use and urban policy.

In 1998, Michigan is still riding the wave of an economic expansion rivaled in the post-war era only by the 1960s. Welfare rolls are at low levels not seen since the 1970s. Michigan employment has crested higher than the national average for the first time in decades. The state treasury has been able to meet program needs and cut taxes year after year.

One offshoot of that growth has been a recent re-ignition of concerns over urban sprawl and land use policies.

Michigan has long had a reputation as a progressive state on environmental regulation. Environmental critics contend that that reputation has been diminished by the probusiness Republican initiatives of the 1990s.

But at least since the 1970s concern about rural farmland and open space falling prey to bulldozers as they carve out new living quarters for escaping urbanites has led to calls for urban renewal and land use policies. Former Republican Governor William Milliken, who was viewed as a strong defender of the environment, called for action long before he left office in 1982. Even Engler, who doesn't share Milliken's reputation, forced a task force early in his first term that called the problem Michigan's most pressing environmental issue.

Yet not much has happened.

In 1998, the Legislature created another task force-a bipartisan group of urban and rural lawmakers-to address land use questions anew. Residents of politically powerful suburbs around Detroit have shown increasing wariness about continuing a trend that they believe is undermining the quality of life they sought in the first place. A few initiatives, tax breaks for farmers who agree to limit development, increased infrastructure costs passed on to developers, may see the light of day before the current 89^th Michigan Legislature expires. But not much of the smart money is betting on them.

Former Representative Hollister finds the situation especially frustrating in his new chair at city hall. "We have a small enough group [in the Legislature] as it is who understand urban policy . . . [or] how precarious is the renaissance of cities," Mayor Hollister said. "Most of them will be gone next year. It is going to be really frustrating."

So, if it's not done this year is land use an issue for the freshman class in the 90^th Legislature?

Maybe.

Lansnet, a Lansing-based newsletter, surveyed candidates for seats in the term-limited state House of 1999. Of those responding to a question about what issues led to their seeking office, the environment was ranked No. 1.

Like other interest groups seeking to further an agenda, environmentalists and conservationists joined the runup to Michigan's first term-limited filing deadline by recruiting candidates to a green platform. It's too early to tell if they succeeded. In the same Lansnet survey, candidates were asked to identify groups to which the belong. The No. 1 answer? The chamber of commerce.

And the dynamics of any big, multilayered public policy question are constantly shifting. That's one of the reasons why even experienced legislators don't solve them. If Michigan's unemployment in 1999 is at 8.9% instead of its current 3.9%, land use is not going to top the state agenda no matter what the level of experience of those who set it. Without question, the knowledge that the end is near has had an impact on the current agenda in Lansing, both in policy and political terms.

Challenging Senators

Under Michigan's new system, 64 House members (out of 110), those who have served three two-year terms, couldn't file for re-election. But their colleagues in the Senate, who serve four-year terms, are eligible for one more round. That means experienced House members who wanted to stay in the Legislature had only one choice-run against an incumbent member of the Senate, often those from their own party. Eight of them took up the challenge.

But the prospect of those challenges has affected day-to-day operations and the level of collegiality in the Legislature for months. Ambitious House members have issued what in other circumstances would be incomprehensible broadsides against senators of the same party. Threatened senators have bottled up bills that, in the normal course of events, they might have celebrated.

Meanwhile, those without prospects of near-term upward mobility have been working feverishly to establish a legacy.

Representative Alan Cropsey has devoted much of the last year to efforts to liberalize Michigan's concealed weapons laws. In the ordinary course of things the so called "shall issue" (i.e., requiring government to come up with a good reason to deny a permit) handgun package likely would have spent at least another year as the subject of heated editorials and public debate. As single issues go, it is a relative newcomer, having worked onto the radar screen only in the last three or four years. 

But this is Cropsey's last stand. And he has been working feverishly to craft legislation that will bring law enforcement interests, the heart of the anti-gun coalition, on board. Of course, he has to do that in a way that doesn't alienate the Second Amendment gun rights crowd that brought the issue to the table in the first place. In the old days, Cropsey might have given up on this Legislature and carried on his work, a la Hollister, into another session. The voters took away that option with term limits.

Hope for the Best

Most of the 64 term-limited members of the Michigan House would be running again this year if it weren't against the law. Leadership in both parties would all be seeking another term. Speaker Curtis Hertel, a Detroit Democrat, and Minority Leader Sikkema said that thoughtful and comprehensive preparation has been made for the onset of new membership. A majority of the credible candidates who filed for the open seats come from public policy backgrounds in school, municipal and county governments. Experienced staff members will stay on, probably in some areas to be supplemented by lawmakers forced into retirement.

"But you can have all the staff you want and all the input in the world," Sikkema said. "It's not the same. We don't have a problem getting input. We get too much.

"The skill experience brings is being able to distinguish between the legitimate public policy point that a special interest might be trying to make and the effort to protect their own turf," he said. "After 12 years, that is something I bring to the table...that you don't necessarily have on day one."

Former Representative Maxine Berman, a Democrat from one of the Detroit suburbs who retired in 1996, worries about the loss of institutional memory. Lawmakers without a sense of how things got to be the way they are may be clueless about how to make them different, she said.

A cataclysm like the 1993 decision to eliminate school property taxes would "paralyze" an inexperienced Legislature, Berman suggested.

But it's impossible to know if she is right. And there isn't anything to be done about it if she is, except hope for the best. The popularity of term limits has increased among Michigan voters since 1992. Moreover, Berman suggested another truism about making public policy in a democracy. Nobody ever gets it right. She served 14 years in the state House. Much was accomplished. Much was not.

"This is a never-ending process," she said. "So when you leave, it's never done. Nothing you do is a finished product."

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State supreme courts overturned term limits in Massachusetts, Nebraska and Washington.

Term limits will keep 64 members of the Michigan House from running for re-election in 1998. But that doesn't mean they can't run for something. In fact, 25 are running for another office. One representative wants to be the new attorney general; one wants to go to Congress. Fourteen House members want to move over to the Senate with seven of them running against an incumbent of the same party. Six would like to be county commissioners; one is seeking a district judgeship; one wants to be a regent of the University of Michigan; and one hopes to become a trustee of Michigan State University.