"Admitting we were wrong"

George Smith, executive director of SAM has an editorial in the Kennebec Journal (and the Sentinel) today under the above title in which he writes about regretting his vote for term limits.

I joined a majority of Mainers in making a bad mistake by voting to enact term limits in 1993. Sixty-eight percent of us thought that we could no longer be trusted to elect the right people to the Legislature, turning instead to an arbitrary four year term limit for all representatives and senators.

That will show 'em, we thought. Yea, we showed 'em the door, all right. But when that door slammed, it hit us right in the head.

We foolishly gave up our right to decide who represents us in the Maine House and Senate, deciding that experience was unnecessary to effective and efficient representation of our interests in Augusta. We were flat out wrong.

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