Erath Rep. Simone Champagne's bill that would have asked voters if they wanted to place term limits on statewide elected officials has been defeated in the La. House Governmental Affairs Committee by a 6 to 2 vote.

Rep. Champagne says the governor is already term-limited to two terms, so other statewide elected officials should be as well.

This is something that I believe that our constituents - mine, yours, all people across this state - deserve an opportunity to vote on this issue.

Champagne says a recent statewide poll shows a large percentage of Louisiana voters support term limits for statewide elected officials. "And those numbers were, as a matter of fact, 82.7% statewide of the people polled wanted term limits across the state," says Champagne.

Champagne's legislation would have asked voters if they want to restrict the lt. governor, secretary of state, insurance commissioner, attorney general and agriculture commissioner to three four-year terms. But Attorney General Buddy Caldwell opposed the measure.

How many of you would like to be restricted on who you can hire as your lawyer? How many of you would like to be restricted? Well, that's what you're doing.

Caldwell says no other state has a term limit on their attorney general. He says if he was term limited, it could cause problems when litigating big cases, like the one his office is currently working on against BP. "It's going to take years for us to handle this. So do we want to encourage BP or any other company to politic against us or hold out or not settle in hopes that they can get another attorney general?"

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