Term Limits Initiative Derailed in Alaska

A statutory citizens’ initiative that would impose term limits of 12 consecutive years and 20 years total on Alaska House and Senate members has been disqualified by the Alaska Lieutenant Governor, who claims that such an initiative would be unconstitutional under the state constitution. Here is a story on this. Thanks to FairVote for the heads up!


Comments

Term Limits Initiative Derailed in Alaska — 26 Comments

  1. Term limits are not democratic. If the majority of voters want to re-elect someone for 50 years or more then that is the will of the people. All term limit statutes should be repealed and no new ones should be made.

  2. Not surprised communist retard Stock loves career politicians and dictators like Biden.

  3. One year terms. Supposing there are about a hundred voters / eligible peacekeepers and perhaps ten part time peacekeeper positions to fill, you’d probably want people to remain qualified despite prior service, but people probably wouldn’t want to perform peacekeeper duty constantly. On the desirability scale, it would be somewhat closer to how most Americans now view jury duty than to hotly contested political office.

  4. There would also be natural term limits in that peacekeepers should be mentally and physically prepared for front line military and law enforcement duty, serving as the equivalent of judges or jurors, and to physically carry out corporal and capital punishment. If the other incentives in my plan function as I expect, having to actually carry out any of those duties would be rare.

    The other function of government, military defense, I expect to function like an existing military or militia.

  5. The real problem is government being so big that people want to make a career of working in government. It is obviously involved in far too many matters.

  6. @WZ,

    Under the original Alaska Constitution, Alaska did not have a Lieutenant Governor. The Secretary of State served as the backup in case of vacancy. The Constitution was amended in 1970, converting the SOS to Lieutenant Governor. Under the Constitution, the Lieutenant Governor may be assigned duties by statute, and elections have been assigned to the Lieutenant Governor. Alaska has a Division of Elections with an executive director – elections in Alaska are administered by the state rather than by local governments, so I don’t think the Lieutenant Governor generally gets involved.

    Under the Constitution, initiatives are first sent to the Lieutenant Governor who does a review before they may be generally circulated. I think this was just a wording change. The 1970 Amendment was styled as designating the Secretary of State as the Lieutenant Governor.

    Alaska does not have a constitutional amendment initiative. The proposed initiative purported to be a statutory initiative (e.g. the procedure for filing for office can’t be done if you have served too many terms. Otherwise, pay the filing fee with an application by such and such a date). Apparently there have been similar initiatives that have been rejected by the Alaska Supreme Court.

    This current initiative was actually rejected on procedural grounds (it didn’t have the required 100 sponsors who supported the initiative). The bit about the constitution was more in terms of, “oh by the way, even if you had enough sponsors, the initiative would be rejected.”).

    The review by the Lieutenant Governor is subject to judicial review.

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