Recent letters claim that assembly term limits will deny voters their choice of candidates. A careful reading of the initiative will expose this red herring. While assembly members will be limited to two terms, they are only required to sit out for three years. After this short mandatory "vacation" they are welcome to come back for another two terms and so on.

Sitting on the assembly is not an easy job. It involves a lot of boring, tedious work and can be emotionally draining to both the elected official and their family. They do get health coverage and years credited to the Public Employee Retirement System. The monetary rewards, however, are not that lucrative for the hours invested. Requiring assemblypersons to limit their service to two term stretches ensures we don't have an assembly that is jaded. Hopefully they will take their knowledge back to the private sector and use it to encourage and inform the public. Hopefully they will continue to follow and impart their understanding from the vantage point of public testimony opportunities. Sitting out in the audience would give them a different and useful perspective. After three years back in the private sector they may find a renewed enthusiasm for the job.

In the "old days," the original homesteaders voluntarily only served one or two terms before going back to their lives. There are numerous instances when they came back a second time: John Davis, Betty Glick, Paul Fischer and Gary Superman, just to name a few. These days, they don't voluntarily retire. Since the folks opposing term limits think that there is no advantage to incumbency, it should not bother them to come back three years later to challenge the current incumbents.

Vicki Pate

Nikiski