From: clarinews@clarinet.com (TED APPEL)
Newsgroups: clari.news.gov.state,clari.news.gov.usa,clari.news.politics,biz.clarinet.sample
Followup-to: biz.clarinet.sample
Subject: California voters to decide term limits on Congress
Keywords: state government, government, usa federal, politics
Date: Thu, 16 Apr 92 13:05:09 PDT
ACategory: usa
Slugword: termlimits
Priority: regular
Format: regular
ANPA: Wc: 483; Id: z5568; Sel: xxngs; Adate: 4-16-4ped
Codes: yngsrxx., yngwrxx., ynp.rxx.

	SACRAMENTO, Calif. (UPI) -- The heat of anti-incumbent fever will be
tested next November in California and as many as 16 other states where
voters will decide whether to limit terms of lawmakers in Congress,
advocates said Thursday.
	Sponsors of an initiative that would place a ceiling on the political
careers of California's congressional delegation have collected more
than 600,000 signatures to put the measure on the November ballot -- well
over the 384,974 required for qualification, said Ted Costa, head of the
anti-tax group People's Advocate.
	``The term limit effort is alive and well and will be before the
voters,'' Costa told a Capitol news conference.
	If approved by voters, the initiative would limit California members
of the House of Representatives to six years in office beginning in
1993. California's two U.S. senators could serve no more than 12 years.
	Politicians who reach the limit could not have their names listed on
the ballot for that office ever again, although they could mount a
write-in campaign for re-election.
	``We'll find out then if incumbency is as great of value as
historically perceived,'' chuckled Lewis Uhler, president of the
National Tax Limitation Committee.
	Colorado is the only state to impose term limits on members of
Congress, but activists in 14 other states currently are circulating
congressional term limit initiatives. Another three states -- South
Dakota, Michigan and Wyoming -- already have placed congressional term
limit measures on their ballots.
	Costa predicted that at least 10 states and maybe 15 will have
congressional term limits on the November ballot.
	Four large states -- California, Ohio, Michigan and Florida -- that
elect one-fourth of the membership in the House almost certainly will
have the question of term limits on their ballots in November, he said.
	Opponents of congressional term limits argue the caps are
unconstitutional because the U.S. Constitution prohibits states from
imposing restrictions on Congress. The California initiative tries to
sidestep the controversy by changing state laws to restrict who can be
named on the ballot.
	``Limiting ballot access is clearly ... the province of individual
states,'' Uhler said.
	Colorado's law, which passed in 1990, has not yet denied any Congress
members the chance to seek re-election, leaving them without legal
ammunition for a successful challenge of the voter-approved measure.
	Signatures for the California initiative will be submitted to county
election officials this week for verification. Costa said his group, the
California Committee to Limit Terms, spent about $350,000 to gather the
signatures. It plans to spend $1 million on the initiative campaign and
hopes to ride a wave of discontent spawned by the House check-kiting
scandal.
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