Ed Rendell has been a generally good Democratic Governor of Pennsylvania, and he is way ahead in the public opinion polls. He is taking nothing for granted, and wants to win a landslide victory that will gain the Democrats seats across the board.
In route to this admirable goal, he is poaching on hard-right Republican territory and actively campaigning for term limits for state legislators. His Democratic allies in the legislature are less than thrilled with this development.
Beyond trying to deprive Republican Lynn Swann of all possible constituencies, and beyond staking out a position that might be appealing in a theoretical race for the 2012 Democratic Presidential nomination against possible President John McCain, Rendell has admitted some frustrations in dealing with experienced state legislators, who sometimes have the attitude that they can merely outwait any term-limited governor.
My belief is that the solution to the problems of governors is to abolish gubernatorial term limits, and term limits for other Pennsylvania offices, rather than to try to establish legislative term limits.
When term limits were established for Governors--they used to be restricted to one term at a time, and then in 1968 they were allowed to seek re-election--there was no 24 hours news cycle, no blogosphere, no armies of engaged citizens anywhere equal to what we have today.
I believe that there are now enough counter-forces in place that we do not have to worry as much about excessive gubernatorial power as we used to. The Governor of Pennsylvania now cannot hire or fire many employees at will, as he used to be able to do; he only makes interim judicial appointments until elections are held; he needs Senate confirmation and legislative approval for many, many projects.
Relieving the governor of term limits--and the Attorney General, the Auditor General, and the State Treasurer--will lead to a greater long-term focus on the part of many state officials.
As important as individual elections are, in the long run they are but part of the many converations that politicians, constituencies, courts, and media hold with the American people.
It takes more than one election to effect lasting change. Indeed, the Politcal Science term "critical elections" is defined as elections that produce lasting voter coalitions of significance to public policy.
As a state legislator, I have found that long-term service can produce meaningful results. It took nearly twenty years of work on the minimum wage to get it up to the $7.15 level it will reach next year. It took many years of work on access to the legal profession to both set up a funding base for legal services for low income people and to expand opportunities for law school admissions.
Other long-term projects I have been involved in include establishing and expanding state-paid senior citizens prescription benefits, abolishing the state welfare liens for homeowners, and expanding state aid for local law enforcement.
It takes time to generate new ideas, and time to educate decision-makers about them. The Pennsylvania legislature and the courts are the two branches of government with long-term focus as things now stand. By getting rid of executive branch term limits, we can make the executive branch the third.