Issue Position: Return the Power to the People

Issue Position

There are a lot of fundamental changes that should be made to our system to improve how our legislators serve the people they represent. Here are three.

First, I support term limits for legislators. Too many legislators stay far too long, which stymies progress. When I ran for office I was effectively uncommitted on term limits. But after seeing how the government works from the inside, I now support them. But any term limit law should be long enough to ensure that we don't have government-by-bureaucrat, which would just trade one set of negatives for another. So I support term limits of about 12 years for legislators in the State House and Senate.

Second, I support getting rid of pensions for legislators. I have introduced a bill to end them. I understand getting legislators to vote to end pensions is a heavy lift, but it is one that would substantially improve the system and the people's respect for government officials.

Third, I support fundamentally altering the way we redistrict the legislature. Every time redistricting comes up, the majority party has done all that it could to ensure it maintained power. This self-interested motive casts the interests of the citizens to the side. In short, constituencies should choose their legislators; legislators should not choose their constituencies.

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