AUGUSTA – They’re baaaacck.

So much for the argument that term limits will leave Maine without experienced legislators, at least in the Senate.

Out of the 35 senators who will be sworn in Wednesday, 31 have served in the Legislature before.

Voters elected 17 incumbents and 18 “new” senators. But of those 18 freshmen, most aren’t actually first-timers; 14 served in past legislatures.

The reverse is happening in the House.

Of the 151 members to be sworn in Wednesday, a full third – 51 – have never served before, ushering in both fresh ideas and a lack of experience.

The makeup of the two houses of Maine’s Legislature offers two very different answers to the question: Has Maine’s groundbreaking, 8-year-old term limits law been good or bad for the state?

Followers of Maine politics differ greatly on the answer. The authors of Maine’s term limits law say it has served its purpose by shaking things up and creating fresh leaders. Former Gov. Angus King speaks for others, however, when he calls the law “a disaster” that reduces experience and knowledge critical to the process.

Less ego clutter

Maine’s term limits law was enacted in 1993. By 1996, it had started terming state lawmakers out of office – the first state to do so. The law prohibits an individual from serving more than eight consecutive years – four two-year terms – in the House or Senate.

It has forced changes in legislative membership.

In particular, term limits has increased migration from the House to the Senate. And it has increased turnover in the House – of both rank-and-file members and leaders, according to one author of a new book that examines the effects of Maine’s term limits law.

All of this is fine with the two men who led the 1993 “No More Than Four” term limits referendum campaign. State House races are more competitive now and “entrenched leadership” is a thing of the past, say Rick Barton and Ted O’Meara. Barton also points out that more women are in the leadership, including Sen. Beth Edmonds, D-Freeport, who will be the next Senate president.

Rep. Peter Mills, R-Cornville, who has experience in both the House and Senate, said another benefit to the law has been that new people are more likely to work together, and the House is “less cluttered up with competitive egos.”

Richard Powell, political science professor at the University of Maine and one of the three authors of the upcoming book “Changing Members: The Maine Legislature in the Era of Term Limits,” concludes that term limits did indeed kick long-standing leaders out. The law also turned out longtime members, Powell confirms, which some people consider beneficial.

But the book also points out that the law created new problems, especially for leaders. Since most lawmakers are being elected to leadership roles with only two years left before being termed out, “members know their leaders are really lame ducks the day they enter,” Powell said. If members don’t like what their leader is saying, they can just “wait out” that leader’s term, he said.

The law has also changed the relationship between the Legislature and other areas of government, Powell said. “Term limits weakened the Legislature’s oversight ability with the executive branch – not just the governor,” but with commissioners and associate commissioners as well, Powell said. “With a higher turnover, there are fewer legislators who have the experience to ask tough questions of agency officials.”

King: I was wrong”

Few people are more outspoken about the downside of the term limits law than former Gov. King. “I voted for it in 1993, but I was wrong,” he said.

He said he’d like to see term limits abolished, except for keeping eight-year limits for leaders “like the governor.”

Term limits has meant the Legislature has lost experience and institutional memory, he said. “Being a legislator is a very complicated job. You can’t learn it in two years, especially leadership,” King said.

For instance, many individuals go into office wanting to do something about health care, but it’s complicated, King said. Because incumbents usually win re-election, what Maine really has is an eight-year span for trying to pass complicated legislation.

Over the eight years that King was governor, the House had four different leaders. “All those people were able, but being speaker is a complicated job,” King said. Having someone in the leadership for only two years erodes effectiveness and makes it harder for that individual to create consensus and get things done, he said.

Senator-elect Mills, who has a total of 10 years’ experience in the House and Senate, acknowledged that because of term limits, there is an experience vacuum in the House. “The House has no institutional memory at all. Last year, Rep. Sawin Millett and I were the sources explaining (to other members) what had been tried,” Mills said. Millett, R-Waterford, served six years in the House and was budget commissioner under Gov. John McKernan.

Barton: Maybe it should be 12 years’

Most experts acknowledge Senate experience has not been hurt by term limits.

“The Senate has an astonishing number of old warhorses back in service,” said Mills, himself included. “The Senate hasn’t suffered. We’ve got as much talent in the Senate as we’ve ever had.”

Mills suggested some reasons for the difference between the Senate and the House: “It’s inconvenient to serve in the House.” With 151 House members compared to the Senate’s 35, “debates and caucuses take longer. Ceremonies are longer,” Mills said. There’s less power, and “you don’t get to speak as often. But when you do speak, what an audience!”

Some say Mills is a perfect example of how someone can stay in the Legislature despite term limits. Two years ago, when Mills was termed out of the Senate after eight years, he ran successfully for a House seat. Then, on Nov. 2, Mills was elected back to his old Senate seat – conceivably for another eight years.

Mills is not alone in figuring out how to remain in the Legislature despite the limits. Since term limits took effect, other lawmakers have taken a term or two off before running for office again or switched to the House or Senate. Former House Speaker John Martin, D-Eagle Lake, was in the House for 30 years until termed out. He sat out two years, then returned to the House, but no longer as speaker. Two years later, Martin ran for the Senate. He has just won his third Senate term.

The law’s authors have no problem with such maneuvers. In fact, it was part of the plan.

“After eight years, you have to sit out or run for the other body. It isn’t a lifetime ban,” said O’Meara, a Republican who is a consultant with the Portland law firm of Pierce Atwood. It’s healthy, he said, for people to serve, step back, then come back if they and the voters choose.

O’Meara said he’s tired of lawmakers talking about how terrible term limits are. If this is so awful, “they can put in a bill to repeal it.”

Barton, a former congressional candidate and former state chair of the Maine Democratic Party, agrees that term limits overall have been positive for Maine. He gives the law a B-plus.

“It’s not a panacea. It wasn’t seen that way,” Barton said. “But those of us who started it wanted to open up the process and make it more competitive.”

Even with higher turnover, “there are plenty there with experience in the Legislature,” Barton said. He questioned author Powell’s findings that the Legislature’s oversight of government agencies has eroded under term limits, but then acknowledged that it’s possible the eight-year limit may not be right. “Maybe it should be 12 years,” he said.

But he isn’t sympathetic to complaints of leadership problems, a loss of institutional memory or turnover that’s too high. Most senators have lots of experience, and one-third of the House being freshmen “sounds good to me,” said Barton, a former United Nations deputy commissioner for refugees. “I’ve worked in U.S. government. I’ve seen the danger of an inheritance class dominating, staying in forever.”