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Maine is one of 16 states that impose term limits on service in the Maine Legislature. Members can serve four consecutive terms in the Maine House or Maine Senate. But there’s a huge loophole: These are not lifetime term limits and they only apply to one chamber at a time. So members may switch back and forth between terms in the House and Senate, or they may serve four terms, wait two years, and run again and perhaps serve another four terms. They can do this as long as they are able to serve.
We have a sense this is not what voters had in mind when they resoundingly passed term limits in 1993. It was a time of dissatisfaction with state government. In 1991, state government shut down for more than two weeks when lawmakers couldn’t agree on a budget. In 1993, then-House Speaker John Martin, whose office was involved in a ballot-tampering scandal, was a source of ire for many Mainers.
In an interesting twist, Martin, who left the House in 2022 because of term limits, is running for the Legislature again this fall. The Democrat from Eagle Lake was first elected in 1964 and has already served in the Maine Legislature for 54 years. He served as Speaker of the House from 1975 to 1994. He served two terms in the Maine Senate.
Martin said he is running this time in part because of the “lack of continuity” that the Legislature has struggled with in the face of term limits, according to a BDN story earlier this year.
“I’ve been there long enough to know how the system works,” Martin told BDN political editor Mike Shepherd.
That is an apt summary of a drawback of term limits: A small group of long-time lawmakers who have cycled back and forth between the state House and Senate or have sat out a term or several know how the system works. They can be an important source of historical perspective, legislative procedure and guidance, for sure. But, they can, and sometimes do, work things to their advantage over legislative leaders and lawmakers with less experience.
In a book published in 2005, three one-time University of Maine professors took a comprehensive look at Maine’s term limits. They found many detrimental effects, ranging from committee chairs who don’t know how to run meetings to a more than tripling of the number of bills that have only one supporting vote in committee, resulting in a floor debate and other time-consuming administrative procedures for bills that ultimately die.
Worse, lawmakers reported having to rely more on legislative staff members and lobbyists for a sense of history, Kenneth Palmer, Richard Powell and Matthew Moen wrote in their 2005 book, “Changing Members: The Maine Legislature in the Era of Term Limits.” Term limits also increased the power of the executive branch, especially as department and agency leaders could outlast, outwit and outmaneuver lawmakers.
These are good arguments for getting rid of term limits, or extending the amount of time someone can serve before being term limited. A referendum to extend term limits, to six terms, for state senators was solidly rejected by Maine voters in 2007.
However, we remain troubled that Maine’s term limits haven’t done what voters expected. With lawmakers switching back and forth between chambers — current House Speaker Rachel Talbot Ross and state Sen. Ben Chipman are essentially running this year to swap their Portland legislative seats because both of them are termed out — or taking a short time away before running again, Maine’s term limits feel kind of meaningless. To be meaningful, term limits should be for a lifetime, which only six states have. Or, they could be scrapped.
Of course if you want new people with new ideas to represent you, the easiest term limit to enforce is to elect someone new to office, but incumbents have huge advantages in elections, advantages that haven’t been dulled much by Maine’s term limits law.
