By Brian Greenspun

Sun, May 25, 2008 (2 a.m.)

Tee up the “be careful what you vote for” music because it is time to pay the piper.

I don’t know how many of you read Jon Ralston’s column Friday in the Las Vegas Sun but, had you done so, you would have seen between the lines a delightfully wry smile at the fine mess my friend Sig Rogich got us into. With an assist from an emotionally charged and unthinking electorate.

I am talking about the term limits brouhaha — or should I just say “ha ha” because I was openly opposed to them then and remain so today — which has some of our most likable and competent elected officials running for cover under the nearest legal opinion that gives them reason to hope they can run again.

The whole thing started back in 1994 when Sig — always looking for ways to get rid of the elected officials he doesn’t like in favor of allowing in the ones he does — latched on to the Republicans’ very successful “Contract with America” campaign slogan and used it to persuade Nevada voters, who are at any given time so sick of the people in office that they favor anyone who isn’t, to support term limits in that year and in a second vote in 1996.

During the initiative process, legislators and other elected leaders who could be affected were strangely silent. They didn’t act as leaders trying to educate people about the folly of their pursuit — they acted like sheep on the way to the slaughtering of our precious right to vote.

So now it is 12 years later and Nevada’s chickens are coming home to roost. Did I really just say that?

Without opining on whether term limits apply — there are enough opinions floating around between the Nevada attorney general’s office and district attorney offices across the state — the fact remains that some very popular, competent and desirable officeholders may not be able to run again for the positions they have so ably filled.

This may fall under the category of unintended consequences, unless the voters of Clark County, for example, intended that a man as experienced and consequential as Clark County Commissioner Bruce Woodbury would be thrown off the ballot without voters ever having had a chance to express their desires.

Why on Earth, one might ask, would we not want one of the most capable commissioners ever to serve stand for reelection?

When Sig was asked that question recently, he was consistent when he said he supports term limits, even though there are tens of thousands of people in Woodbury’s district who would challenge that opinion and who, truth be told, probably weren’t here when that term limits law was passed.

But enough about Commissioner Woodbury. There are plenty of others who may never get the chance to face a decision of the voters. Because we allowed ourselves to get caught up in the emotions of the moment when limiting the scoundrels had a certain appeal, we are now faced with the prospect of having our right to vote curtailed.

It is all, or mostly, legal. Maybe. (My guess is the courts will have their chance to weigh in on this issue soon.) But is it responsible?

And just as the people of this state are being asked at every election, and they will be again this year, to vote for laws and constitutional amendments that sound good at first blush but are really harmful to this democracy, the lessons to be learned are being missed. Over and over again.

The place in our democracy to write laws is in our legislatures, our Congress and our local councils — not in our ballot boxes, where an emotional argument and a million dollars can determine the outcome. Our system of government requires deliberation, compromise and a significant understanding of all the facts, ramifications and repercussions of any action. That just does not happen when voters allow themselves to be swayed by 30-second commercials and slick advertising campaigns.

What we get from those things is a law that limits the terms of the people we want to vote for and need to have representing us because they actually know what they are doing.

Now, assuming my friend Sig is right — that term limits are a good thing — perhaps we should put another initiative on the ballot. It can go something like this:

In any election in which a governor is elected and, by the time he takes office even his supporters are disgusted, the people can have a redo as if the first election never happened. Now, under the current conditions, that would be an initiative we could all support.

But I wouldn’t. I say if the people allow themselves to remain ignorant of the consequences of their votes, they should have to live with those results until the next scheduled election. In Gov. Jim Gibbons’ case that means we have to suffer for just a couple of more years.

But, in the case of term limits, how long do you think this state will suffer from the inopportune loss of some of the best and brightest people we have ever elected to public office?

And how much do you think our ballot box folly will cost?

Brian Greenspun is editor of the Las Vegas Sun.