Meadows proposes term limit changes

State Rep. Mark Meadows, D-East Lansing, wants to change the way lawmakers do business. Meadows recently proposed various ideas to reform state government, including reforms of state legislators’ term limits, slashing business tax credits and lowering the state’s sales tax and expanding it to services.

Longer limits
One of Meadows’ proposals would amend Michigan’s constitution to extend term limits to 12 years in both the Michigan House and the Senate.

Term limits currently are six years in the House and eight years in the Senate.

“It isn’t about getting re-elected,” Meadows said. “It is about the fact that nobody has any experience here, and you see some bad things occur because people don’t know why we did things a certain way.”

This election year, at least 29 Senate seats and 24 House seats will be open because of term limits, and Meadows said this proposal will not benefit sitting lawmakers because it could not take effect this year.

Senate Majority Leader Mike Bishop, R-Rochester, has indicated support of extending term limits, his spokesman, Matt Marsden, said.

“Whether it is to open term limits completely up again or to extend the limit, he would support discussion about changing it,” Marsden said.

For the constitutional amendment to pass, both chambers need to agree to the changes and submit them to the state for voter approval. Michigan’s current term limit laws were passed by voters in 1992.

This proposal would lengthen terms to four years in the House and six years in the Senate. Currently, House terms are two years and Senate terms are four years.

Because of Michigan’s term limit laws, many lawmakers fail to meet election promises and do not have enough time to understand their job, according to a study recently published by Wayne State University.

Advocates of term limits say they bring change and awareness of citizen concerns to the Capitol. However, Wayne State University professor Charles David Elder, who worked on the study, said in an e-mail the study proved the opposite.

Michigan term limits are among the shortest in the country and only 15 states have term limits, according to the study.

“Unfortunately, most people don’t know or want to know what a perverse effect term limits have had and will continue to have,” Elder said in the e-mail. “Thus, it is doubtful that voters in the state would be willing to see them abolished.”

The bill was referred to the House Judiciary Committee and Meadows said there could be a hearing as soon as May.

State Rep. Rick Jones, R-Grand Ledge, a member of the House Judiciary Committee, said many voters think term limits allow them to throw unsuccessful lawmakers out of office.

“What they don’t understand is Democrats and Republicans work together when they get to know each other,” he said. “I have built up some very good working relations with people on both sides of the aisle and that takes time.”

Meadows also proposed putting the nonpartisan Legislative Service Bureau in charge of redistricting the state following a census and allowing Attorney General and Secretary of State candidates to be chosen by voters in a primary election. Attorney General and Secretary of State candidates currently are selected at party conventions.

Helping businesses

To reform the state economy, Meadows proposed lowering sales tax to 5 percent and extending it to services.

The plan also would cut $1.2 billion from the Michigan Business Tax, which would attract new businesses to the state, Meadows said.

The plan, introduced earlier this month, was referred to the House Tax Policy Committee for consideration.

State Rep. Brian Calley, R-Portland, a member of the House Tax Policy Committee, said he does not support expanding the sales tax to services.

“The concept of lowering the rate and expanding to services has some merit,” he said. “The problem is that it is a bad deal for consumers. If you were serious about making a change like that and being fair to consumers, you would need to take the rate down to 4 or 4.5 percent.”

Because of the numerous service outlets, such as child care and auto repair shops, the new tax would affect, it could create as much as $1 billion in new taxes for consumers, Calley said.

He said this could hurt the service industry, which is one of the only growing industries in Michigan, he said.

But Meadows said the plan will help new businesses grow and lower the tax burden on existing businesses.

“(It) will help job providers have the money they need to grow, hire more workers and get Michigan back on the job,” he said.

Meadows said he wants to use 75 percent of new revenue generated with a service tax for K-12 School Aid Fund and 20 percent for revenue sharing, which helps fund local police and fire protection.