Musical chairs just another way to skirt around term limits

ACHTUNG: This is not a “fair and balanced” story. It is an editorial by the editor.

I hear tell in the last two weeks that no fewer than three state legislators plan to get back into the government game in a different capacity this year.

I reported earlier this month that former 80^th District State Rep. Bob Genetski, who stepped down at the end of 2014 because of term limits, will seek the Allegan County Clerk’s office in the August Republican primary. This has to mean that current Clerk Joyce Watts will retire after a 40-year career as register of deeds and clerk because I just can’t imagine Genetski challenging an incumbent Republican. A much more plausible explanation is that he has been anointed by the GOP insider5s’ club as Watts’ successor.

Then comes news this week that current 72^nd District State Rep. Kenneth Yonker, who is term limited at the end of this year, will seek the Kent County Drain Commissioner’s post.

Furthermore, State Rep. Lisa Posthumus-Lyons, daughter of former Lt. Gov. Dick Posthumus, also scheduled to be term limited at the end of 2016, now will run for Kent County Clerk.

A little to the north and west, State Rep. Tom Hooker is stepping down and now running for Byron Township Supervisor.

All of these legislators were forced to step down after serving six years, or three consecutive two-year terms. So by next Jan. 1, they all need new jobs. At public expense.

This game of musical chairs is the incumbent establishment’s latest way of getting around an admittedly stupid law passed 22 years ago that has done nothing to improve Michigan governance. I submit that the State Legislature we endure now is far worse than the one we had in 1994.

Even Glenn Steihl, the champion of the term limits law in bygone days, came to regret its passage after he served the maximum eight years as Senator in Lansing. His conclusion was correct — term limits is a terrible idea, artificially limiting public officials rather than having voters do the job themselves.

Yet I still see many Facebook posts almost daily calling for term limiting officials in Congress. I agree with all of them that too many old-timers have spent too long in their government posts, but we also have to remember that some do a good job and deserve to remain.

Instead, every six or eight years we see turnover in Lansing with fresh faces of people whom I submit are less capable and yield too much power to people who aren’t term limited — lobbyists.

I remain particularly alarmed at the poor performance of the State Legislature and Gov. Rick Snyder over the past five years and I’ve outlined my reasons in several editorials. Yonker, appearing at the Leighton Township Board meeting Thursday evening, presented a glowing report to local residents and officials that was squarely in fantasy land in his insistence Michigan is in far better shape than when he arrived in January 2011. Yet no one dared to challenge the pretty picture he painted.

Once again, the late comedian George Carlin was right when he astutely said, “The game is rigged… but nobody seems to notice, nobody seems to care.”

This musical chairs game for legislators we’re watching now just further illustrates the point.

Carlin also said, “It’s a big club… and you ain’t in it.”

If I were king, and I am not, I would have the term limits law rescinded and have all redistricting done by a non-partisan committee every 10 years. Perhaps only then will this kind of skullduggery cease.

PHOTOS: Joseph Stalin “votes” for himself in 1937.

Bob Genetski   Ken Yonker

Lisa Posthumus Lyons