Longtime KPEL Listener Weighs In On The Term Limit Debate For Statewide Elected Officials

Last week, Louisiana State Representative Simone Champagne, R-Jeanerette, appeared on KPEL’s morning show promoting her bill calling for a Constitutional Amendment imposing term-limits on state-wide elected officials.

House Bill 88 would limit state-wide elected officials to three 4-year terms.

Rep. Champagne should be commended for her continued persistence on this issue, despite it being defeated year after year by her own colleagues. Last year, this legislation failed House passage 49-49.

Click here see if your State Representative believes in allowing you, as a voter and state taxpayer, the RIGHT to CHOOSE whether or not we should have term-limits on state-wide elected officials in Louisiana.

Judging by that vote record, NEITHER of the State Representatives in my parish (Acadia) believe in allowing us the opportunity to decide if we want such term limits in Louisiana.

Term limits alone is certainly not a cure-all for political corruption and reform. However, the absence of such limitation encourages, and is definitely an enabler to, not only complacency, but politicians making a career out of a single elected office, using their position to garner and sell favors, and in many instances gaining a sense of entitlement which in the end hurts the constituents and taxpayers he or she is supposed to represent.

When I ran for office, I did so with every intention to serve a maximum of only two terms, should the voters choose to elect and re-elect me. Much of what is wrong with government and the politics involved stems from an entitlement mentality, of which even good people with initial righteous intentions many times come to inherit from decades of "owning" an elected office.

As a result, please contact your State Representatives and State Senators.  Ask them to support HB 390 this legislative session. Because HB 88 is a proposed Constitutional Amendment, we need a 2/3 vote in both chambers to send the proposal to the ballot.

All we are asking for, as voters, is the ability to CHOOSE if we want these term limits on our state-wide elected officials. Merely passing this bill and allowing us the choice does not make it automatic, but at least the voters and taxpayers will then have a voice on this very important issue.

This opinion piece was authored by Nick Bouterie.