Howard Rich - Political Activism - Term Limits

Term Limits

In 1992 Rich founded U.S. Term Limits which supports limits on the length of office of officials at the local, state, and federal levels. He is chairman of U.S. Term Limits. Rich financed many term limits movements in the 1990s. In an editorial, Rich posed the question: "Who's in charge – the people or politicians?" He criticized political connections between political contributors and government contractors and wrote: "When government contracts are being handed out, all qualified companies should have a fair chance at getting public business, not just companies that donate to the re-election campaigns of entrenched politicians or hold cocktail parties at expensive restaurants in their honor." He believes term limits are a way to restore popular control over government. He wrote: "The longer politicians are in office, the more likely they are to rip us off for their own benefit – rewarding the donors who funded their campaigns and the special interests who keep them in power rather than the people they should be serving." He wrote that term limits force politicians "to represent the people instead of advancing their own careers." According to Rich, he and his groups have been successful in creating term limits for 37 governors, 15 state legislatures, and in nine large cities. He is agitated by plans of the New York City Council to undo term-limit laws passed by a referendum, and compared a possible repeal to undoing the smoking ban. In USA Today, he wrote in an editorial that American voters "overwhelmingly support term limits" and that "citizens value fresh ideas, new perspectives and more competitive elections more than the so-called institutional knowledge of the political ruling class." Rich has opposed New York City mayor Bloomberg's quest for a third mayoral term. He opposes career politicians generally. In 2008, a senior senator of the legislature of Nebraska blamed Rich and term limits for his "forced retirement," but Rich responded in a letter to the editor of The New York Times that "term limits have never been aimed at any one individual, but rather at an underlying culture of abuse that invariably tends to place the voracious appetites of government institutions over the best interests of the people they are there to serve."