Term limits have an obvious appeal. They promise to remove career politicians and prevent elected office from becoming a permanent profession. Many Americans, frustrated with Washington, understandably see them as an easy solution.

On social media and in conversations with friends and associates, political frustration has again reached a fever pitch. The go-to solution is often: “Fire them all!”

In 1993 and 1994, as Utah debated legislative term limits, I was managing a Utah congressional campaign, opposing term limits and developing policy on this and other constitutional reforms in real time. In the years that followed, I served three terms on the Utah Republican State Central Committee and spent several legislative sessions at the Capitol as an unpaid citizen advocate, helping develop legislation and working directly with lawmakers.

Utah today is not the Utah of 1994. Decades of economic and population growth have brought new residents, industries and political perspectives. We cannot assume that the reasoning behind earlier political debates — or their lessons — has passed automatically from one generation of voters to the next.

Institutional memory can be a good thing. I remember this debate. My response has not changed.

The Constitution already provides the ultimate term limit: the ballot box. In a constitutional republic, people have the right and responsibility to remove those who no longer represent them. With term limits, we would lose good public servants along with the bad. The deeper question is whether citizens continue to exercise meaningful influence over those who govern.

The experience of states with legislative term limits should give us pause. Research has not demonstrated that term limits consistently reduce lobbying or government spending. Frequent turnover can instead leave legislators with less experience in policymaking, budgeting and oversight.

Meanwhile, unelected staff, executive agencies, career bureaucrats and professional lobbyists remain. They retain institutional knowledge, relationships and practical influence. If term limits increase dependence on these institutions while reducing the experience and independence of elected legislators, have we strengthened representative government — or have we weakened it?

History reminds us that liberty is rarely lost in one dramatic moment. More often, it diminishes gradually as power becomes increasingly centralized and decision-making moves farther from the people. When citizens believe they have little access to decision-makers, political frustration can move from civic participation to mass protest and, at times, destructive unrest. When representative government ceases to feel representative, the danger is movement not toward greater liberty, but toward its opposite: anarchy.

A government that abandons constitutional safeguards such as bicameral checks and balances and an electoral college by consolidating and centralizing power threatens the ordered liberty a constitutional republican government was designed to preserve.

The framers designed the House to be closest to the people. The Constitution allowed representation as close as one member for every 30,000 inhabitants, and the founding generation expected the House to grow with the nation. The first amendment proposed by the First Congress in 1789 addressed congressional apportionment and contemplated an expanding House. Today, the House is fixed by statute at 435 members, leaving each representative to serve hundreds of thousands. Technology allows communication across distances the framers never imagined, but broadcasting to hundreds of thousands is not the same as giving them meaningful access to their representative.

Perhaps the problem is not that representatives have served too long, but that each has too many people to serve.

Perhaps we should restore constitutional government rather than simply rotate officeholders: reconsider the century-old 435-seat limit; limit the length of legislation so representatives can read bills before voting; reduce the administrative state; strengthen restrictions on the revolving door between public office and lobbying; and restore accountability to elected representatives.

The federal budget also tells us where the largest fiscal questions lie. Approximately 59% of federal spending goes to mandatory programs, 13% to national defense, 14% to non-defense discretionary programs and 14% to interest on the national debt. With debt now exceeding $40 trillion, long-term fiscal stability may prove far more consequential than term limits.

Utah’s experience is worth remembering. The Legislature enacted term limits in 1994 amid a citizen initiative campaign for stricter limits. Nine years later, before the law had prevented anyone from seeking reelection, the Legislature repealed it.

Thirty-two years after that debate, I ask essentially the same question: Will term limits return power to the people of Utah — or transfer more influence to permanent institutions and lobbyists who remain when elected representatives leave?

Before embracing term limits as the solution, perhaps the old warning is still the wisest: Be careful what you ask for — you just might get it.

Cherilyn Bacon is a teacher, performing arts educator and civic leader. She is a former candidate for the U.S. Senate, served three terms on the Utah Republican State Central Committee and was a Utah presidential elector. In 2011, she was honored as the Wasatch Woman of the Year for Community Service. In Salt Lake City, she was a talk show host and guest contributor on ABC’s “Good Morning Utah.” She is the mother of five children and grandmother of 18, most of whom reside in Utah.

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