Lawmakers gather to study term limits

LAKE OZARK, Mo. -- Term limits guarantee a new look for the Missouri Legislature after the end of next year, and that has lawmakers anxiously looking for ways to deal with the impending change.

So concerned are lawmakers, that nearly 90 of them turned out for a three-day conference with term limits as the only item on the agenda.

They heard Friday from colleagues in states already effected by term limits and from academics who have traced term-limit-caused changes across the nation. What they heard, at least from their perspective, was not too encouraging.

"The severity of the term-limit hit in Missouri next year, I think, is unprecedented," said Gary Moncrief, a political science professor from Boise State University who has written extensively about state legislatures and term limits. "You've got quite a challenge."

Ordered by voters

Missouri voters approved a constitutional amendment in 1992 limiting lawmakers to a lifetime total of eight years in each the House and Senate. Because that election did not count toward the limits, the 2002 election will be first in which large numbers of lawmakers will be barred from seeking re-election.

Nearly half of the House members -- 75 of the 163 representatives -- will be forced from their seats. In the Senate, where just 17 of 34 seats are up for election, a dozen members will be forced into retirement.

Not only are term limits hitting both chambers simultaneously, but the turnover is occurring as once-a-decade redistricting forces a change in the areas that lawmakers represent. No other state legislature has experienced term limits and redistricting at the same time, Moncrief said.

Eleven other states already have seen a sizable turnover because of term limits. And there are several trends that are likely to occur in Missouri, experts said.

"Term limits undermines the long-term relationships built on trust and therefore undermines cooperation," said John Carey, a political science professor at Washington University in St. Louis.