Wyoming lawsuit latest blow to term limits

Wyoming could become the sixth state to abandon legislative term limits after adopting the practice in 1992.

“I feel the push [for term limits] is gone,” said Wyoming state Rep. Rodney “Pete” Anderson, a Republican, who is a plaintiff in a lawsuit challenging the legality of term limits in that state.

Advocates of term-limits question whether there will be much more activity restricting terms of state legislative incumbents, although they insist the concept is still popular.

All but one of the 21 states that have legislative term limits adopted the practice during the movement’s peak in the 1990s. Nebraska enacted term limits in 2000.

“I think the movement has slowed down, … but the reality is that term limits have been a popularly driven grass-roots movement,” in effect in most states with the capability for public ballot initiatives, said Mark Petracca, a professor of political science at the University of California at Irvine.

Mr. Petracca, who describes himself at a “liberal Democrat,” supports term limits and said several cities in California have adopted term limits in the past several years.

“So, right now, action is at the local level,” he said in a telephone interview.

In Wyoming, Mr. Anderson will be term-limited out of office Jan. 1 after 12 years if the state Supreme Court does not rule in his favor in a lawsuit that he, another state lawmaker and several constituents filed contending the statute violates the state constitution.

“We expect a court decision before the May 8th filing date” for political candidates in Wyoming, Mr. Anderson said in a telephone interview.

Term limits adopted in Idaho, Massachusetts, Oregon, Utah and Washington state already have been repealed or struck down by courts.

In addition to Wyoming, states where term limits remain in effect are Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Florida, Louisiana, Maine, Michigan, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, Ohio, Oklahoma and South Dakota.

Gary Moncrief, political science professor at Boise State University in Idaho, said the movement to limit legislators’ terms largely has run its course.

“There are no new states looking at it, and I don’t think this movement will grow,” Mr. Moncrief said in a telephone interview. At the same time, he said it is doubtful the movement will be diminished in the future.

Mr. Moncrief said that all but one of the 21 states that approved term limits did so through public ballot initiatives, a process that exists only in 25 states, mostly in the West.

Louisiana was the only state where lawmakers voluntarily imposed term limits on themselves. They did so in 1995 during a widespread corruption scandal, in which several lawmakers were videotaped accepting casino-related payoffs on the floor of the legislature.

Louisiana tried to repeal its term-limits law last year, but the effort failed.

In Wyoming, term-limited legislators can return to office after a four-year break, and although Mr. Anderson said the idea of term limits “has some merit,” he believes it’s “unconstitutional” to take away voters’ rights “to decide who serves them and how long.”