U.S. Term Limits Asks Ohio Candidates to Pledge Support for Term Limits

Palm Beach, FL – U.S. Term Limits, the nation’s oldest and most successful term limits advocacy organization, has sent a pledge to every candidate for the Ohio General Assembly, asking for a signed commitment to “take no action that would aid or abet the abolition or lengthening of term limits to which elected officials in Ohio are subject.”

The pledge also went to all incumbents who are term-limited after this year.

“I can’t find any evidence that the people of Ohio want legislators’ upping their own term limits from eight to twelve years in one seat,” said USTL President Philip Blumel. “This is something the politicians have cooked up just for themselves.”

Blumel is referring to efforts by the Ohio Constitutional Modernization Commission to weaken term limits. Its team of elected politicians and their appointees has recently discussed ways to dilute or abolish the current law.

Public opinion backs up Blumel’s pro-term limits sentiment. In a May poll conducted by the University of Akron, 70 percent of Ohio voters said term limits should be kept at eight years. Only 13 percent said they should be lengthened to 12 years.

“Any attempt to adjust the current limits will rightly be viewed as disregard for the people’s choice,” Blumel writes in the letter accompanying the pledge.

U.S. Term Limits has provided postage and an easy way for respondents to mail back their pledges. Once the results are collected, Blumel will share them with the people of Ohio.

“Citizens put legislative term limits on Ohio’s ballot in 1992, and passed them into law with more than 68 percent of the vote,” notes Blumel. “Since then, support for the law has only increased. Voters will be very interested in knowing which legislators stand with them, and which stand for their own ambitions.”

Pledge: http://termlimits.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/Ohio-Pledge.pdf

Pledge Letter: http://termlimits.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/Ohio-Letter2.pdf