Kelli Ward on Government Reform

Less government meddling

Curb citizen initiatives to reduce fraud

Analysis by The Arizona Republic (Apr. 16, 2017): Four years ago, Arizona lawmakers passed an ambitious plan to curb citizen initiatives and make other substantial changes to elections. They said new rules were needed to reduce voter fraud and streamline elections. That didn't sell with a coalition of citizen groups. They called the bill voter suppression, and set out to block it. They got the bill referred to the 2014 ballot; coalition members were confident voters would kill it. So were lawmakers; they repealed the measure [but re-passed it in parts].

Legislative Outcome:Passed House 33-26-1 on Jun/13/13; Passed Senate 16-13-1 on Jun/13/13; State Sen. Kelli Ward voted YES; Signed by Governor Jan Brewer on Jun/19/13

Signed term limit pledge: 6 years House; 12 years Senate.

Organizational Self-Description: U.S. Term Limits, the nation's oldest and largest term limits advocacy group, announced that 14 new signers of its congressional term limits amendment pledge have been elected to the 114th Congress. The group includes five new senators, eight new House members and one House incumbent who signed the pledge for the first time this cycle. The pledge calls for members to co-sponsor and vote for a constitutional amendment limiting House members to three terms (six years) and Senators to two terms (12 years). The USTL President said, "The American people are fed up with career politicians in Washington and strongly embracing term limits as a remedy. Gallup polling shows that 75% of Americans support term limits."

Opposing legal argument: [ACLU, Nov. 7, 2014]: In U.S. Term Limits v. Thornton (May 22, 1995), the Court ended the movement to enact term limits for Congress on a state-by-state basis. The Court held that the qualifications for Congress established in the Constitution itself could not be amended by the states without a constitutional amendment, and that the notion of congressional term limits violates the "fundamental principle of our representative democracy 'that the people should chose whom they please to govern them.'"

Opposing political argument: [Cato Institute Briefing Paper No. 14, Feb. 18, 1992]: Several considerations may explain political scientists' open hostility to term limitation:

• Political scientists were instrumental in promoting the professionalization of legislators.
• They are cynical about the attentiveness, general knowledge, and judgmental capacity of the average voter.
• They are committed to the conservation of leadership.
• They perceive attacks on professional politicians as a threat to their own self-proclaimed professionalism.
• And political partisanship may encourage them to oppose term limits.