County Council makes a grab for more power

This is almost too easy.

The global economy is in the toilet, budget cuts are coming at the state and local level and few of the problems facing the region are getting much better.

So the Pierce County Council takes time to approve an amendment to the county charter to give themselves more time in office.

By a 5-2 vote, the council decided the first step toward resolving all of the issues facing the county is to extend County Council and executive term limits from two four-year terms to three four-year terms. Three of the yes voters had just tried, and failed, to win countywide office that would have reset the time clock. Two others are in their second – and final – terms.

Putting the issue starkly as a backside protection measure would be uncouth and politically dangerous. Personal ambition is always best hidden behind the public good.

So the council members tell us they do this so they can better serve us. Eight years is just not enough time to fix things, to learn the ropes well enough to safely sail the ship of government.

And then they play to our poor stepchild image. In regional bodies that make decisions and divvy up money, Pierce loses out to counties where politicians don’t face term limits, they claim.

Really? Not on the Sound Transit board where two Pierce County politicians have served as chairman in the relatively short life of the agency – former Tacoma City Councilman Paul Miller and County Executive John Ladenburg. Both were term-limited, as was Tacoma City Councilman Kevin Phelps who as finance chairman led the effort to dig the agency out of a financial and credibility shortfall.

And the representatives on regional bodies from non-term-limited counties tend to rotate through those posts anyway, so seniority is much less an issue than presented.

Term limits were part of the county charter adopted in 1980 as part of a campaign to reform an incurably corrupt government. Limiting the power of elected officials was considered a vital part of that reform.

So any changes to that charter must be approved by a majority of county voters. But as presented by the council majority, voters won’t get to make a clear choice between two terms and three terms.

That’s because the council linked the term limits issue with another that is only marginally related. The same charter amendments that extend term limits will also shift county elections from even-numbered years to odd-numbered years.

That seemingly ministerial change could be popular because county elections tend to get lost when they are on the same ballot as president, Congress, governor and Legislature.

Toss in the ranked-choice voting, slow vote counting and long lines for those who still try to vote at the polls and it is probably a good idea to move county elections.

But voters can’t have one without the other. They might hold their noses and support longer term limits in order to get something they favor like odd-year elections.

That’s what happened last year when county voters agreed to extend limits for assessor-treasurer, auditor and sheriff in exchange for making those offices nonpartisan on the ballot – and hopefully in practice.

Linkage might be the only way voters might get rid of term limits, given the most-recent expression of sentiment on the issue. Tacoma voters rejected a move to get rid of the city’s term limits 52 percent to 48 percent, even though the issue was at the bottom of a very long ballot and even though some may have voted yes because the confusing ballot wording appeared to impose term limits, not repeal them.

The council majority hopes there is enough to distract voters. In fact, though, the public good of extending term limits is so narrow and the personal ambition it unveils so bloated that it begins to look like a Hummer hiding behind a parking meter.

Peter Callaghan: 253-597-8657

peter.callaghan@thenewstribune.com

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