TERM LIMITS FOR SUPERVISORS?

I see that the San Diego County Employees union is going to start gathering signatures to put an initiative on the ballot that would limit the Board of Supervisors, who I lovingly refer to as our "Supervisors for Life," to two terms.

I'm against it, of course. I realize that this is the Holy Grail of the populist wing of the conservative movement, who somehow think that limiting office holders to two-terms (I've even heard a single term, with no possibility of reelection) will make the Republic work better. I don't buy it. We've had term limits in California for a couple of decades and the state's government has only gotten even worse than it was before. Corruption and stupidity will always find a way around artificial limits. Bad people can do bad things with a single term. And if they know they are limited to one term they will just do those bad things faster.

If the people are going to change their government, THEY need to do it, not rely on some artificial means. The people should be able to reelect able officials as many times as they want. I'm even against the president being limited to two terms.

That said, I do think it's time for the people of San Diego County to start holding their supervisors for life accountable. It's disgraceful that we haven't seen any new people on the board for ten years.

I'm suspicious that this two-terms law is being pushed by a public employees union. If they want to get rid of some of the supervisors, then probably the supervisors are doing some good things. Generally speaking, anything that is good for a public employees union is probably bad for the taxpayers at large.

I'll be watching this one closely. It probably won't get any further than the similar petition drive pushed a few years ago by the pot smokers, but we'll see.