Term limits are popular for an understandable reason: Most people don’t want elected office to become a lifetime job.

We want new leaders to have opportunities to serve, we want elected officials to remain accountable to their communities, and we don’t want anyone to become so entrenched in government that they stop listening to the people they represent.

Term limits promise to accomplish all three.

But there is another side to the conversation: What happens when voters want to keep an experienced representative, but the rules won’t let them? Does taking away voter choice lead to a better system?

Nebraska has been answering that question for more than 20 years.

Now, as Nebraskans are asked whether or not to extend term limits for state senators, and the City of Lincoln considers a proposal to impose term limits on City Council members, Nebraska’s experience provides an important opportunity to look beyond the appeal of the idea and consider its potential consequences.

Nebraska’s long history with term limits

Term limits aren’t new to Nebraska. In 1996, Nebraska voters approved Initiative 409, which included provisions promoting congressional term limits. Some of those provisions were later found unconstitutional.

Four years later, voters considered a different question: whether to impose term limits directly on Nebraska’s state senators. They said yes.

In 2000, voters approved Initiative 415 with 55.82% of the vote. The constitutional amendment established a limit of two consecutive four-year terms for members of the Nebraska Legislature. After serving those two terms, a senator must leave the Legislature for four years before becoming eligible to serve again.

More than two decades later, term limits are a normal part of Nebraska’s political landscape. They have also given us something many states and communities considering term limits don’t have: years of experience to examine.

Why term limits are appealing

The case for term limits is straightforward.

They can create opportunities for new people to run for office. They can prevent elected officials from holding the same position indefinitely. And they can encourage healthy turnover in government.

Supporters of Nebraska’s 2000 term-limit initiative argued that term-limited lawmakers would be more responsive to their constituents and less beholden to special interests.

Those are worthwhile goals.

Democracy should provide opportunities for new leaders. Elected officials should be accountable to the people they serve. And no one should be guaranteed a political career.

But term limits aren’t the only way to accomplish those things.

In fact, term limits can create a fundamental tension with another important democratic principle:

Voters should get to decide who represents them.

Term limits take a choice away from voters

In a democracy, elections are supposed to give voters the power to decide whether an elected official deserves another term.

If a council member isn’t doing a good job, voters can replace them.

If a senator isn’t representing their district, voters can elect someone else.

If an elected official has lost touch with their community, voters can hold them accountable at the ballot box.

Term limits change that equation.

Instead of allowing voters to decide whether an experienced and effective representative should continue serving, term limits establish an automatic expiration date.

That means an elected official can be doing a good job, maintaining strong relationships with constituents and receiving support from voters, and still be prohibited from running again.

The question becomes less about whether voters want someone to continue serving and more about whether that person has reached an arbitrary limit.

The unintended consequence: who fills the knowledge gap?

One of the biggest concerns about term limits is what happens when experienced elected officials are regularly required to leave office.

When turnover is high, a legislature can lose institutional knowledge faster than it can build it. New senators have to learn the rules, processes and history of the Legislature while also learning the complex issues they are being asked to legislate on. State senators often say that their first four years are often spent just learning how processes work.

And the turnover doesn’t always stop with elected officials. New senators may also bring campaign staff, advisors or other political professionals with them who are new to the Legislature and unfamiliar with its history and processes.

None of that means new senators or their staff aren’t capable of doing the job, but when an institution is continually losing both elected officials and the people who have worked with them, it becomes harder to maintain the knowledge and experience needed to make informed decisions.

The result can be a Legislature where the people with the most responsibility for making decisions have less institutional experience than the people and organizations they regularly interact with.

Local government needs experience, too

It can be tempting to think about term limits differently at the city level. After all, a City Council member isn’t running a state government.

But local government makes decisions that directly affect people’s everyday lives.

City councils deal with housing, streets, public safety, development, transportation, parks, utilities, land use and budgets. Those decisions often involve complicated policies that have evolved over many years.

Local government also operates on relationships. Relationships with city staff, neighborhood associations, businesses, nonprofits, residents and other elected officials. Understanding those relationships takes time.

That doesn’t mean a council member should serve forever. It does mean that experience has value in local government just as it does at the state level.

What about “career politicians”?

One of the most common arguments for term limits is that they prevent “career politicians.” But the phrase can obscure an important distinction.

There is a difference between an elected official who refuses to listen to constituents and an elected official who has served for many years because their constituents continue to choose them.

Those are not the same thing.

If voters repeatedly elect someone, that is not necessarily evidence that democracy is failing. It may simply mean voters believe that person is doing a good job.

The better question isn’t necessarily, “How long has this person been in office?”

It’s: “Are voters still choosing them?”

Elections already provide a mechanism for replacing elected officials. Term limits replace that voter-driven decision with a predetermined rule.

Lincoln’s proposal

Lincoln is now confronting this question directly.

Currently, Lincoln does not have term limits for City Council members. However, a proposed amendment to the city’s charter would limit City Council members to two consecutive four-year terms.

That would create a maximum of eight consecutive years on the council before a member would have to leave office.

The proposal is part of a broader effort to change how Lincoln’s elections and local government operate. Supporters say the changes would increase accountability, prevent the problems associated with career politicians and encourage greater participation in city government.

Those goals deserve to be taken seriously.

But so do the potential consequences.

Lincoln voters should ask whether automatically removing experienced council members is the best way to create accountability or whether voters themselves should remain the ones who decide when an elected official’s service has run its course.

New voices and experienced voices both matter

There is a false choice at the heart of many term-limit debates. We don’t have to choose between experienced leaders and new leaders.

We need both.

New officials bring new perspectives. They can challenge assumptions, introduce new ideas and represent communities that may not have previously had a voice in government.

Experienced officials bring something different: institutional knowledge, relationships and an understanding of what has worked—and what hasn’t.

A healthy democracy makes room for both.

The challenge is creating a system where new people can compete for office without automatically forcing out experienced leaders who represent their constituents well.

The bigger question

Term limits aren’t inherently anti-democratic. They were created with a democratic purpose: to prevent political entrenchment and encourage new leadership.

But a democratic policy can still have unintended consequences.

Nebraska’s experience shows us that term limits don’t simply determine how long someone can hold office. They affect how institutions retain knowledge, how elected officials build expertise and relationships, and ultimately who has the power to make decisions.

As Nebraska considers adding a term to the term limit for State Senators, and Lincoln considers term limits for City Council members, we should learn from that experience.

The question isn’t whether Nebraska needs new leaders. The question is whether voters should be the ones to decide when an experienced leader has served long enough.

In a democracy, accountability comes from the people.

And sometimes the most important power voters have isn’t choosing someone new.

It’s choosing to keep someone who has earned their voters’ trust.