Perry supports term limits initiative
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Cape Cod Times: State Rep. Jeffrey Perry said yesterday that he supports a constitutional amendment that would set 12-year term limits for Massachusetts state legislators. Term limits would help clear out corruption in the state Legislature by decentralizing power, Perry, R-Sandwich, said in an editorial board meeting with Cape Cod Times staffers. "Now we have the culture of professional full-time politicians with staff. People get there and they want to remain there," he said. "People are making decisions based on what's in their best interest." State Rep. Karyn Polito, R-Shrewsbury, who also attended the editorial board meeting, said she filed the bill proposing a constitutional amendment on term limits because "the system is not correcting itself." Each of the three previous House speakers has faced criminal charges, and efforts to bring about ethics reform in the Legislature are stalling, Polito and Perry said.
As a member of the Ethics Committee, Perry said his hands are tied by the cronyism on Beacon Hill. "My input is practically meaningless," he said. Polito's amendment would limit politicians to 12 years in the state Legislature in their lifetime, or six legislative terms. It would not affect other elective or appointed offices. The clock wouldn't start until the bill was passed, said Polito, who is in her ninth year in the Legislature. Perry is in his seventh year. State Rep. Matt Patrick, D-Falmouth, called term limits a "worn-out idea." "We already have term limits in that every two years we have to run for re-election," he said. Patrick said he supports a constitutional amendment that would elect the House speaker by a secret ballot in order to reduce cronyism and favoritism. Polito said the term limit proposal "ought to be at least debated." She said that within the next week or so she will ask the House speaker to move the bill out of the Joint Committee on Rules to a hearing. If the amendment is approved by a majority of two consecutive sessions of the Legislature, the proposal could go to voters in 2012.
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