July 29, 2003
Idaho Speaker Honored for Courage to Overturn Term Limits
WASHINGTON, D.C. - The nation's leading state legislative organizations bestowed their highest honor, the William M. Bulger Excellence in Leadership Award, on Idaho Speaker Bruce Newcomb for his fourteen years in leadership and for his role in overturning Idaho's restrictive term limits laws.
Each year, the National Conference of State Legislatures, the State Legislative Leaders Foundation and the Council of State Governments honors a legislative leader who has exhibits a commitment to protecting and strengthening the institution of the state legislature. The winner is selected by a committee representing each of these organizations as well as journalists, former legislators and scholars.
"Speaker Newcomb demonstrated extraordinary political courage and a deep commitment to the institution of the state legislature by taking on the unpopular challenge of repealing term limits," said Marty Linsky, chair of the Excellence in Leadership Award selection committee and a former Mass. state legislator. "He put his position and his career on the line in the interests of what he believed was necessary to preserve the legislature as a full partner in governance, opposing a governor of his own party and challenging a public that had twice approved term limits in a referendum."
In 1994, the Gem State voters enacted some of the country's most restrictive term limits on state lawmakers - limiting an individual's service in the Legislature to only eight years. Speaker Newcomb recognized that this initiative not only denied the citizens of Idaho their democratic rights to elect their preferred candidates to office, but also would severely restrict the ability of the legislature to make effective policies and offer an appropriate balance to the executive branch.
While Idaho was not the first state to impose limits their legislators' length of service, under Speaker Newcomb's leadership, Idaho became the first state to legislatively overturn the voters' decision.
Since 1990, eighteen states have enacted term limits on members of their state legislature. As a result, the term-limited states are experiencing record turnover and a dearth of institutional knowledge. Noted Stephen G. Lakis, President of the State Legislative Leaders Foundation, "Term limits are the worst 'reform' ever foisted on state legislatures and citizens. It dramatically weakens the effectiveness of the state legislature and it denies every citizen his or her fundamental right to vote for the person they favor." Consider the following:
- More than half of the presiding officers calling their chambers to order in 2003 were bringing down the gavel for the first time;
- More than 40 percent of legislators taking office in the California Assembly and Maine House are serving their first term;
- No less than 75 percent of the members of the Michigan Senate have never served in that body before being sworn in this year, 57 percent of Arizona senators, 46 percent of the Arkansas Senate, and 43 percent of the South Dakota Senate.
"As a result of many voter initiatives, many states are being forced to endure one of the most difficult budget processes since the Great Depression without the institutional knowledge that has been so vital to the integrity of the legislative institution," said William Pound, executive director of NCSL. "While states are still living up to their constitutional and statutory responsibilities of balancing their budgets, suffice it to say, term limits have done nothing to ease the process."
Speaker Newcomb, a sixteen year veteran of the Idaho House of Representatives, led a difficult fight to overturn legislative term limits in Idaho, despite two statewide referenda supporting term limits and the need to override a veto from the governor of his own party. His efforts were ratified by the voters last fall when they failed to reinstate legislative term limits.
Idaho is the first state in the nation to successfully repeal the law through legislative action. But it was not the last. Given Speaker Newcomb's success in Idaho, legislators in Utah overwhelmingly repealed legislative term limits in their state, leading one member of the selection committee to remark that the defeat of term limits in Idaho "may go down in history as the term limits Battle of Gettysburg, the high water mark for a misguided crusade."
The William M. Bulger Excellence in Leadership Award was presented along with a $10,000 check to the charity of Speaker Newcomb's choice at NCSL's Annual Meeting on July 23 in San Francisco. Speaker Newcomb is the ninth recipient of the award.
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