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Robert Gehrke: Term limits are a neat idea that won’t solve the problems its proponents hope it will

This week, the United Utah Party launched an initiative drive to let voters decide whether to limit state legislators to 12 years in office and hold the governor and other executive officers to two four-year terms.

The last time we had a real debate about term limits was 25 years ago (a short-lived effort in 2015 aside), when voters rose up to put the favorite populist proposal on the ballot. Back then, the Legislature stepped in and passed their own term limits, taking the wind out of the sails of the initiative drive, only to repeal them in 2003, before anyone was actually term-limited out of office.