The body politic

Democracy can be a damn inconvenience.

I'm reminded of that every four years when I go whistling to the polls and vote for someone or something, completely convinced the someone or something is a shoo-in, only to wake the next day to discover the shoo-in was shot down.

South Dakotans are a fine bunch of folks. We have shared the same state for a good while. But how so many otherwise decent people can be so misguided so often is an absolute mystery to me.

Happily, I take comfort in knowing the mayor of this city and four-fifths of the South Dakota Legislature feel exactly like I do.

Earlier this month when told a group of residents launched a petition drive to counter his and the City Council's decision to increase the city sales tax from 1.92 percent to 2 percent on Jan. 1 to raise more money for road construction, Sioux Falls Mayor Dave Munson sounded dumbfounded.

“I'm trying to build a city, and build a city for the future, so that our kids and grandchildren don't have to go to Minneapolis or Omaha or Kansas City for opportunities. They can stay here," huffed Munson at the news that Citizens for a Responsible Sales Tax hoped to gather enough signatures to ask voters to cut the city sales tax to 1.9 percent ­– the pending .08 percent increase plus a bit more – because it is convinced a looming U.S. recession and banks from Iceland to Islamabad making like the Hindenburg is a strange time for city government to be hitting up taxpayers for more money.

"What do they want to take away?" grumbled Munson. He noted the city budget next year includes $615,800 for upgrades to McKennan Park. "Do we want to just drop those programs we want to do for McKennan Park? It's a possibility."

If that was a veiled threat, it lacked the veil.

Munson should consider himself lucky. He has only a handful of meddlesome members of the body politic on his hands. The Legislature has 205,074.

That's how many South Dakotans voted for term limits for state lawmakers 16 years ago. The constitutional amendment to force legislators to beat it once they had served eight consecutive years passed 63.5 percent to 36.5 percent. In politics a margin that wide is a World Series sweep, a Super Bowl blowout. It's like winning the Emmy for best picture, best actor, best director and best manicurist.

It's like U.S. v. Grenada or David v. Goliath.

Nonetheless, when they met in Pierre earlier this year, 82 of the 105 members of the South Dakota Legislature dismissed the decisiveness of that 1992 vote and drafted their own constitutional amendment to dump term limits. They have placed their amendment on the Nov. 4 ballot.

To ignore 205,074 fellow South Dakotans takes moxie or – depending on how you look at it – hubris and gall. Some foes of term limits – state legislators like Phyllis Heineman and Gene Abdallah – suggest it takes time for lawmakers to learn the ropes in Pierre and to hone their leadership skills. Just when they get the hang of it, Heineman and Abdallah fret, legislators have to pack their bags.

It is hard to argue against the importance of experience. Unless, of course, one were to point to the U.S. Congress where there are no term limits, where people go and never leave, where there is more white hair than bingo night at the senior center and where just about everything seems to be screwed up.

Other opponents of term limits – legislators like Bill Thompson and Roger Hunt – claim term limits shift power from the Legislature to the executive branch. Clearly, neither Mike Rounds nor Bill Janklow before him are Dale Carnegie graduates. Their method of reaching consensus is to look in a mirror and talk to themselves. But if eight years isn't enough time to develop some backbone, to gather the gumption to tell a governor every now and then to get lost, how will another two years – or 20 – fix that?

I suspect the real reason 82 South Dakota lawmakers want to ditch term limits is the reason lawmaker Shantel Krebs wants to ditch them. In her response to a questionnaire from this newspaper sent to all the local state legislative candidates this fall, Krebs had this to say when asked for her position on term limits: "I believe disqualifying qualified people from serving simply based on the fact they have already served greatly diminishes the pool of good candidates."

Within 100 yards of my house, there must be at least two dozen people who fit the bill to be state legislators: They are smart, and they love South Dakota. Every day I work alongside dozens more.

Apparently, some people – 82 of them to be exact – need to move to a better neighborhood or find a better job. They don't get what 205,074 other South Dakotans got 16 years ago: No person yet has cornered the market on good ideas. Everyone has stock in that trade, and those who feel otherwise – like a certain 82 legislators – have either an inflated opinion of themselves or a poor one of others.

In nine days the other people who inhabit this state will once again tell me just how wrong I am. When that happens, I'll mutter. I'll curse. I'll look to the heavens and shake my head. I might even wonder – if for only a fleeting moment – if somehow, by some fluke of nature, by some crazy twist of fate, I have it backward.

Maybe the misguided one isn't them.

Maybe it's me.

And maybe someone should remind the mayor of this city and four-fifths of the Legislature how a democracy works. It seems they have forgotten.