In the sweltering summer of 1992, Gina Loudon asked countless strangers in St. Louis to sign a petition.
Every stroke of ink she collected brought Missouri one step closer to a term-limited Legislature.
Two decades after the campaign, the well-known author and TV political commentator said supporting term limits was the worst decision in her political career.
The petition, led by Missourians for Limited Terms, was successful and months later Amendment 12 would pass with 75 percent of the vote. For the first time, Missouri senators and representatives would be limited to eight years of service in both chambers.
Marrying John Loudon, who would serve 14 years in the Legislature, gave Gina Loudon the opportunity to see the negative effects of the policy she had helped produce, she said.
"People think that term limits give citizens power," she said, "And it has precisely the opposite effect. The average citizen now is just devoid of any power and any control over the legislative process."
Term limits officially took hold in the House in 2001 and the Senate in 2003, when the first legislators affected by the amendment were prohibited from running for re-election. Two decades later, the effects still are being debated.
Some, like Loudon, believe that term limits have been harmful and have not accomplished what the policy sought to change. Others believe term limits are a necessary check on power and have curbed outside influence on the body.
Nick Tomboulides, the executive director of U.S. Term Limits, said the policy has helped put an end to "professional politicians" at the state level.
Resolutions have been introduced nearly every legislative session to change the conditions of term limits in Missouri's Constitution. Four were proposed this year in the House:
• House Joint Resolution 5, sponsored by Rep. Craig Redmon, R-Canton, would allow a legislator to serve 16 years total in any combination in both chambers. Redmon's bill, if passed, would have to be approved by voters in the 2016 election.
• House Joint Resolution 43, sponsored by Rep. Margo McNeil, D-Florissant, also would set the maximum number of years at 16 in any combination of the chambers. McNeil's bill would not apply to legislators currently in office and, if passed, would need the people's approval in the 2018 election.
• House Joint Resolution 20, sponsored by Rep. Michael Butler, D-St. Louis, would extend term limits to 12 years in the House and 12 years in the Senate, allowing an individual to serve a maximum of 24 years in the General Assembly.
• House Joint Resolution 24, sponsored by Rep. Mike Cierpiot, R-Lee's Summit and the assistant majority floor leader, would apply a two-term limit to all statewide elected officials. Limited terms currently only apply to the governor, treasurer and legislators; this bill would impose limits on the offices of lieutenant governor, secretary of state, attorney general and auditor.
Types of limits
Fifteen states have limited terms, which exist in two general forms: consecutive and lifetime bans. Within the nine states with consecutive limits, a legislator can serve a limited number of years and then must switch chambers or leave the Legislature for a "cooling off" period, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. After this period, they can run for re-election.
Six states, including Missouri, have lifetime bans. Once a legislator has served the maximum years, they are ineligible for re-election to that office for life. Only Michigan has more restrictive limits than Missouri, with lifetime bans after six years in the House and eight years in the Senate, according to the NCSL.
Tomboulides said he believes both consecutive and lifetime limits can push "perspectives into office that you otherwise wouldn't see." But he said he believes eight years is ideal.
"It gives you just enough experience to change the things you want to change before the job changes you," he said.
Term limits: success or failure?
After being elected as a representative in the 1980s, Chris Kelly returned to the state Capitol for his second round of service in 2008. He said he forced himself to suspend judgment to take an "intellectually-fair look" at the effect of term limits on the General Assembly.
After serving 18 years in both a non-term limited and a term-limited Legislature, his conclusion was far from positive.
"Term limits have been incredibly destructive to the legislative process," he said.
Gregory Upchurch, who led the campaign Missourians for Limited Terms in 1992, disagreed and said the policy has had a beneficial impact on the Legislature. He said the body was unrepresentative of the voters who approved the amendment, pointing to the 75 percent approval rate as proof others agreed with him.
At that time, politics in Missouri were in upheaval, as corruption repeatedly had reached the office of the House speaker. Richard J. Rabbit was indicted in 1977 for taking money from automotive lobbyists. Nineteen years later, Bob Griffin, the longest-serving speaker of the Missouri House, was indicted on counts of bribery and mail fraud.
Bob Priddy, a retired journalist of the Missourinet, a statewide radio news network, covered the state Legislature for four decades. He said corruption was a motivating factor in the voters' decisions.
"The idea was, if we get rid of these bad people," he said, "we'll get new people in here with fresh ideas and we'll get new energy. And we'd be a better state because we'd get rid of these crooks."
Upchurch said he believed that term limits have been beneficial because they have increased turnover.
"I believe that if you think you can be there forever, bad things start to happen," he said. "The whole point of term limits is to get people out of there before they get comfortable with power."
Opponents believe term limits have stripped the legislative body of institutional knowledge, empowering experienced political players outside the Legislature who often represent special interests.
"The shift of power away from the elected representatives to bureaucrats, staff and lobbyists is very significant," said Kelly, who - after opting out of running for his last eligible House term in 2014 - started down a new career path as a lobbyist.
"And there is a shift to a group I did not anticipate," he said. "And that's to political parties."
Priddy added: "It's very clear to me that most of the things that people said were bad would happen, have happened. And few of the good things that people said would happen have happened."
Lost knowledge or gained perspective?
In April 2014, Priddy was asked to speak at a memorial service for 60 former senators who had died since 1987. He used the opportunity to highlight a problem that term limits have caused - the lack of experience in the chamber.
"Not one of the members of the Senate today ever served with one of those 60 senators," Priddy said in a phone interview. "Not one of them ever had to prove to some of these people, who had been veterans of the Senate for 20 years or more, that they deserved to be called senator."
Rep. Nate Walker, R-Kirksville, who also served in the 1980s before returning to the House in 2012, said both chambers have lost the camaraderie that generated compromise.
"I was pretty young when I was in the Legislature the first time," Walker said. "I had several mentors, not just from my party, but the Democratic party, too."
Sen. David Pearce, R-Warrensburg, said that increased turnover has led to "unnecessary competition and animosity among fellow House members who eye each other to see who's going to be the next state senator."
Tenure, which represents the level of collective knowledge on legislative procedures, slowly increased throughout the 1900s until term limits took effect at the turn of the 21st century, according to a 2012 report from MU's Institute of Public Policy. In the decade after limits took effect, tenure decreased by 62 percent in the House and by 70 percent in the Senate.
From 2001 to 2011, the number of representatives with two years or less experience in the Legislature nearly doubled from 62 to 112. In the same period, the number with at least seven years experience dropped from 59 to three, according to the report. In the same decade, the number of senators with two or less years experience increased from two to five, while the number with at least seven years of experience decreased from 26 to 21.
The decrease in tenure also has "strengthened the centralized control of the House through House leadership," said Rep. Stephen Webber, D-Columbia. The 31-year-old will be ineligible to run for re-election in 2016, but he recently announced he will vie for a seat in the Senate.
That seat currently is held by Sen. Kurt Schaefer, R-Columbia - who can't run again because of term limits.
Webber said: "You have plenty of people who just don't know enough to stand up to leadership.
"It's very easy for a senior member to bully a freshman who just doesn't know any better."
Kelly said: "People elected now are every bit as smart and hard working as they ever were. But they just don't have enough time to learn this stuff."
Redmon, who is serving his fifth year, said he is still learning the legislative process. Two years ago, when he was appointed as the chairman of an appropriations committee, he said he faced a huge learning curve. He believes the body would benefit if legislators could gain more experience before they were expected to fill leadership roles.
The lack of experience in the Legislature also has increased dependency on political parties, Kelly said. Legislators now have less time in office to prove their merit, so they align with their caucus for support and endorsement. Increased turnover has caused party loyalty to become the fastest route to a leadership position, Kelly said.
"The parties are almost entirely malicious," Kelly said. "They care only about the election, not about the public policy at all."
The role of lobbyists
People would rush to voting booths to repeal term limits if a lobbyist would speak out against the policy, showing its benefits to special interests, Butler said.
"There's only one group of people that people hate more than politicians," he said. "And that's lobbyists."
Kelly, who started his own consulting company in January, said "there is no doubt" that members of his new-found profession have gained a significant amount of power since term limits took effect.
Added Webber: "The representative of the citizens and the representative of the taxpayer, which is the legislator, has far less experience then the representative of special interests," he said. "And experience matters."
Tomboulides said term limits have changed the relationship between lobbyists and legislators, benefiting voters across the state.
"Lobbyists prize these lifetime subscriptions and relationships to one legislator that they know very well," he said. "Term limits break that cycle. Term limits sever those relationships."
Because of limits, lobbyists can no longer keep a politician in their pockets for extended periods of time.
However, the MU report explained, the new policy has increased lobbyists' involvement in the legislative process. Now, legislators lean on them to not only explain the bill in question, but also its history and the policy issues surrounding it.
But Tomboulides said that campaign contributions prove that term limits have curbed lobbyists' influence, because they reveal a preference that the old system be put back in place.
"Any time term limits have came up on the ballot, lobbyists and the special interests that they represent just spend overwhelmingly to help the side trying to prevent, weaken or abolish term limits completely," he said.
Cierpiot, who is in his third term, said limits also have led to an increase in power for bureaucrats.
"I still rely on bureaucrats and others to help me understand some issues," he said. "And that's not necessarily serving the folks I represent well."
The bills this session
To offset some of the negative impact from term limits, Redmon's solution is to make them more flexible. House Joint Resolution 5 would set a lifetime ban after 16 years of service in any combination of the two chambers, enabling legislators to stay in the chamber where they feel most effective, he said.
His resolution would apply to legislators already holding office. He admits that some may think he's "feathering (his) own nest," but he said he doesn't think it will impact voters' decisions. His bill passed through committee on Feb. 24 and has been referred to a select committee, where action was postponed twice, with the last occurring on May 6.
McNeil has sponsored House Joint Resolution 43, which would impose the same 16-year limits as Redmon's bill. However, she said her bill, which was referred to committee on March 12, was written to exclude legislators already holding office, including herself.
"I feel like people are more likely to vote for the bill if they don't feel like it's self-serving," she said.
Butler agreed: "If Redmon's (resolution) would pass a vote of the people, then I would be able to stay in the House for 16 years," he said. "And I just don't think I should switch up my parameters halfway through the game."
Tomboulides said that making the limits more "flexible" is a common trick that legislators try to use.
He said that "mathematically," there are not enough open Senate seats every year for all the termed-out representatives.
"Going to 16 years would have the effect of lengthening term limits for people who otherwise would have had to go home," Tomboulides said.
Butler's bill, House Resolution 20, would extend term limits to 12 years in both the House and the Senate, allowing a legislator to serve one year shy of a quarter of a century. He said this would give lawmakers four more years in each chamber, which he believes would remedy some of the lost institutional knowledge.
His bill passed through committee on April 14 and was referred to a select committee, which postponed action on May 6.
Redmon said the odds of his bill getting "across the finish line" are dwindling as the session comes to a close. If it doesn't pass, he said he plans to refile the bill next year.
Cierpiot's resolution would set limited terms for all statewide elected officials. He said turnover is lacking in the offices of lieutenant governor, secretary of state, attorney general and auditor, which currently don't have limits.
"It's unfortunate, but much of getting elected is name (identification)," Cierpiot, the sponsor of House Joint Resolution 24, said.
Statewide elected officials easily are identifiable by voters and, therefore, are hard to defeat in elections, he said.
Gov. Jay Nixon spent 16 years as attorney general "waiting for an opening in the governor's mansion," Cierpiot said.
Both Tomboulides and Upchurch said they support the idea behind Cierpiot's resolution, which the House passed on April 27. Two days later, it was second-read by the Senate and referred to committee.
Webber said he did not think all elected statewide officials should have term limits.
"I don't think a bad policy for some people should be made into a bad policy for everyone," he said.
Loudon believes the best action would be to repeal term limits, but getting voters to end the policy she helped create will not "be an easy prospect," she said.
"I just don't know how you convince them that giving a politician more time to be a politician is going to make it better."
Kelly said the state should abolish the policy.
"You can't find any retired legislator of either party who will tell you term limits are a good idea," Kelly said. "I think society ought to recognize that we made an error and just go back and correct it."