Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: TUESDAY, March 6, 1990                   TAG: 9003062127
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A10   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

CONGRESS

Under the scheme, touted by a new lobbying group called Americans to Limit Congressional Terms, the Constitution would be amended so that U.S. senators (who serve six years at a time) could serve no more than two terms and U.S. representatives (who serve two years at a time) no more than six.

Proponents' principal argument is that the re-election rate of House incumbents who choose to run routinely has become 95 percent or more; in 1988, it was 98 percent. Proponents also cite public-opinion polls showing sentiment in favor of a limit.

Proponents tend not to mention, however, that the re-election rate for Senate incumbents is far lower. Nor do they tend to mention that retirements, deaths and resignations create considerable turnover in the House even with the high rates of incumbent retention. Only a third of the current House has served for more than 12 years - about the same as 20 years ago.

Neither is it clear that seniority is more bad than good. Some veteran congressmen are excellent legislators; others are not. But the same could be said of less-experienced congressmen. Was the inner moral compass of ex-Speaker Jim Wright any more reliable when he was a freshman?

But such questions are really beside the point. If the public in truth favors a limit on congressional service, a powerful mechanism for imposing such a limit already exists. The mechanism is called elections. By now, the public should be aware of them: That's how House members have been chosen since the beginning of the republic, and members of the Senate since 1913.

Moreover, the mechanism should be obvious to the head of Americans to Limit Congressional Terms. Jim Coyne, a Pennsylvania Republican riding Ronald Reagan's coattails, won a House seat in 1980; two years later, he lost it.

Coyne's group has both Republican and Democratic members. On the other side, there are Republicans as well as Democrats who oppose the proposal. But the issue has partisan overtones: If for no other reason than that Democrats have more congressional incumbents than Republicans, particularly in the House, Democrats seem less likely to embrace the idea.

But if the idea is being put forth at least in part for partisan motives, and were the idea to go into effect fairly soon, Republicans might be in for a rude awakening. Current members of Congress, a majority of whom are Democrats, would be exempt from the 12-year ceiling. But it would apply to future members - and with the 1990 census and consequent redistricting, the GOP may well do better than Democrats at electing new congressmen during the decade.

If so, it wouldn't be the first time for a term-limiting constitutional amendment to backfire against the Republicans. The 22nd Amendment, limiting presidents to two terms, was ratified in 1951 as a rather straightforward partisan measure. It was a Republican reaction to Democrat Franklin D. Roosevelt's precedent-shattering four presidential-election victories in 1932, '36, '40 and '44, which had been followed by Democrat Harry Truman's victory in '48.

Of the 10 presidential elections since '51, however, the Democrats have won only three. And of the eight presidents since '51, the two directly affected by the amendment were Republicans. If there had been no limitation, and if Dwight D. Eisenhower and Ronald W. Reagan had chosen to run again after eight years in the White House, perhaps the voters would not have re-elected them. But, as with members of Congress after 12 years, shouldn't that be up to the voters?