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Originally Posted On: https://richardmcintosh7.wordpress.com/2023/11/01/richard-mcintosh-on-the-effects-of-term-limits-on-public-policy-in-missouri/
Missouri has a unique story to tell and a history of political evolution. I am Richard McIntosh, Partner of Flotron Mcintosh, a governmental consulting firm based in Jefferson City, Missouri, a few blocks from the State Capitol and I have seen our Missouri story unfolding up close and personal for Thirty-Five years.
As first a legislative staffer, and now a consultant and lobbyist, I have lived to see the effects that term limits have had on public policy making in the state of Missouri and what led us to this point, up close. History matters. This is both my story and Missouri’s.
Mine began when I served as a Budget Analyst for Senate Appropriations, then became Assistant Director of Governmental Affairs for Attorney General Jay Nixon and then became the Chief of Staff to the first and as of today, only female, House Majority Floor Leader, Gracia Backer.
To put this in context, as a Twenty-two-year-old budget staffer, I went from a graduate straight out of college to having the responsibility to analyze and make funding recommendations to Twelve, what I thought of as grumpy old white men, Senators on the Senate Appropriations Committee. This committee is where all the state funding decisions were and still are, made. The committee was a mixture of both Democrats and Republicans, all of whom were fiscal and socially conservative. It was difficult to discern that they had a different political party. This was because the Democrats had controlled the Missouri State House and Senate since reconstruction, except for a brief two-year period in the 1950’s.
Senate Roger Wilson (D) was the Senate Appropriation’s Chairman, a highly regarded Senator, and Missouri did not have fixed term limits. There was turnover in the House because of elections, less so in the Senate. In fact, as Senate Dick Webster use to say, “Governors come and go but the Senate is forever.”
Therefore, the Senators had a long period of time to craft their skill at public policy making. This also created a camaraderie between Democrats and Republicans. Numerous times during heated Senate floor debate, Senators delivered well placed, sharp, cutting debate arrows as they discussed public policy on bills and amendments.
Despite the level of passion that occurred on the Senate Floor, those exact same individuals when the Senate adjourned for the day, would end up in each other’s office for adult drinks and fellowship. Or they would all go out to dinner and there was rarely a hint of what was discussed on the Senate floor. It would have been a breach of Senate protocol to continue the debate. This was a time for the Senate family to come together.
Because of their longevity of service, it was rare that bills and amendments were written once with precision. Battle lines were clearly drawn as the known position of the various Senators on the issue meant that many potential proposed bill changes were simply dead-on arrival. As former Senator Franc Flotron use to say, “the wheels of government turn slowly, to prevent individuals from being run over.”
All of this changed with the nationwide push for term limits that became codified in Missouri in 1992. It was started by certain Republican leaning outside entities to break the lock that Democrats held in many state legislatures across the nation. And in Missouri, certain elected officials did hold outsize influence because of their longevity.
In Missouri, we had members of the Democratic party who were pro-life as well as a number of Democratic legislators, particularly in the State Senate, who wanted to expand gun rights. On the gun issue, a coalition of Democrats and Republicans started the push for right to conceal and carry. Once again, left leaning Democrats were adamant that there would be gun battles in the streets, Wild West style. The other side of the argument for the bill was that the legislation was just making otherwise law-abiding legal. Ultimately, the bill passed the House and Senate and became law.
This set the stage for Democrat moderates to be pushed out of the party and become Republicans. About this same time, term limits were starting to kick in and those seats shifted from Democrat to Republican. As a consequence, Missouri shifted from being a purple state to a deep red state because of beliefs on guns, with similar shifts on abortion, taxation, the perception of over-regulation, and the rise of alternatives to public education becoming the hot button Republican issues where once there was a mix.
As legislators termed out, there was a rise in controversial legislation drafted. As more complex legislation was starting to be debated, the number of legislators with institutional knowledge and understanding of the public policy making process started to decrease. This snowball continued to increase in speed because as new legislators came into office, they brought staff from their campaigns to serve as their policy advisors.
This is in deep contrast to how the legislature had previously operated. When I was hired, professional staff did not work on campaigns very often. The skill set to work on a campaign and get someone elected is different from professional policy making skill set of analyzing and research topics and issues. As result of the diminishment of legislative history and knowledge, there was increase in the number of attempts to change statutes without knowing what had previously occurred.
There has been a drastic shift in power. Today, lobbyists and bureaucrats now hold institutional knowledge. Before, lobbyists simply provided the facts and information about proposed statutory changes or appropriations spending to the elected official. No legislator can be an expert in every topic and lobbyists help educate the effects of proposed statutory changes on their clients. While the term “special interest” and sometimes “lobbyist” is spoken with derision, in truth, everyone has a special interest important to them and lobbyists can make it happen.
If you told me at Twenty-two years of age that I and a few others would hold the institutional knowledge for the Capitol, I would have been chagrined at that idea. Now that legislators are limited to eight years in the house and eight years in the senate, it is the reality.
We have also seen a marked decrease in cooperation across the political aisle and less and less of a collegiate atmosphere. Term limits are one of the root causes of this, and so are other reforms, such as the ban on paying for dinners. The ban has reduced lobbyists and their clients’ monthly expenditures. It has not resulted in the intended effect of reducing the influence of lobbyists in the building. Yet buying a meal is a lot less expensive or influence building than current donor giving, and it leads to people getting to know each other which leads to less division.
In spite of this, there are good public policy changes being made in Missouri. We have seen some tremendous legislation passed. It is done with more strife and less natural flow than before. An analogue is the different between swimming with the current verses against the current. You can get to the same place but the pain level in getting there increases by several fold.
As one of the first staffers to work for both the Senate and then House, I am now one of the first to every transition to become a consultant and lobbyist. There are only a few of us who understand the complexity of the institution due to experience. You can’t play the game if you don’t understand the rules. Just as you don’t want to take your tongs and pull out a tooth, you probably don’t want to try to work inside the process you don’t understand. There are some flash in the pans, but the people who remain are willing to learn from their mentors, just as I did, and understand that it is a privilege to help craft meaningful public policy. Missouri’s future is bright.
See you at the Capitol.
