Key lawmaker proposes ending term limits for Senate president

A KEY LIEUTENANT to Senate President Karen Spilka is proposing a rule change — with her apparent blessing — that would scrap term limits on the chamber’s president. 

The proposal would end a rule limiting the Senate president to eight consecutive years in power that’s been in place for three decades. It would put the Senate in line with the House, which has gone back and forth on the issue, but has not had a term limit for the House Speaker since 2015. 

Sen. Michael Rodrigues, chair of the powerful Senate Ways and Means Committee, filed the rule change proposal. In a statement, Rodrigues said he “brought this forth after discussions with democratic [sic] colleagues, and the Senate President, on the prospective negative restrictions the term limit provision places on the Senate.”

Noting that the governor and House Speaker have no term limits, Rodrigues said the need for the Senate president to seek reelection by her colleagues every two years amounted to “de-facto term limits.” 

A spokesperson for Spilka did not return a request for comment on Tuesday.

The Ashland Democrat’s term as Senate president began in mid-2018, and under the current rules she would have to relinquish power in three and half years. Under the proposed rule change, she could serve indefinitely. 

Senators may be reluctant to publicly oppose the change, since they are all still awaiting Spilka’s appointment of committee chairs and leadership posts for the new session that began last month. 

Spilka took power after a tumultuous period for the chamber. She followed former Sen. Harriette Chandler, who took the president’s reins after Sen. Stan Rosenberg stepped down from the post amid a sexual harassment scandal involving his husband. Rosenberg ended up resigning his Senate seat as well. 

Spilka presided over the body for a year and a half before a global pandemic upended the daily rhythm of the Legislature, shuttering the State House and forcing lawmakers to conduct business online through virtual sessions.

“With the Commonwealth now finally emerging from three years of the COVID-19 pandemic, stability and continuity are paramount for the passage of pressing and long-overdue legislation stalled by three years of uncertainty,” Rodrigues said in his statement.

The Senate first implemented the term limit rule in 1993, during William Bulger’s long hold on presidency, though it did not take effect until after his record-setting 18 years at the helm of the chamber. 

Term limits in the House have not been so consistent. An eight-year term limit on Speaker was instituted in 1985 during the tenure of Speaker George Keverian. The rule was in place until supporters of then-Speaker Thomas Finneran voted to remove them in 2001, as the Mattapan lawmaker began his third two-year term in power. In 2009, after Speaker Salvatore DiMasi resigned in scandal, the House brought back term limits on the speaker, with DiMasi’s successor, Robert DeLeo, calling them a key part of the effort to restore public credibility and trust in the chamber. 

Six years later, however, DeLeo declared that his thinking on the issue had “evolved,” and he pushed through a rule change that jettisoned the limit on a Speaker’s time in power. DeLeo held the Speaker’s post for 12 years, becoming the longest-serving Speaker in state history.

Term limits have often been embraced by progressives on Beacon Hill, with more liberal lawmakers and government watchdog groups arguing that they are an important check on entrenched leadership power. Leaders in both legislative chambers over the years have developed reputations for centralizing power in their offices, with Speakers, in particular, seen as ruling with an iron fist over the larger, 160-member House. 

Term limits can serve as a counterweight to that the power dynamic, said Geoff Foster, executive director of Common Cause Massachusetts, which opposes the proposed rule change.

“Term limits help ensure there is more input from every member in the body,” said Foster. “We think it’s important to make sure that every senator has relatively similar influence, and we do know in the past that term limits helped ensure there’s at least a regular transfer of power.”

Jonathan Cohn, political director for the left-wing grassroots group Progressive Massachusetts, voiced concern that eliminating term limits for the Senate president would be another step moving the Senate closer to the House in the way it does business. 

The past few years have seen “what I would call a House-ification of the Massachusetts Senate,” said Cohn, “operating with a greater concentration of power that we have, in recent years, more attributed to the Massachusetts House, and now possibly embracing its style of governance.”

Throughout the day on Tuesday, members of Spilka’s leadership team offered comments supporting the rule change, which seems poised to win approval in the 40-member Senate. 

Sen. Cynthia Creem, who has served as Senate majority leader since 2018, said the change would strengthen the chamber. “The best indicator of whether someone should continue in a leadership position is the quality of the work that they’ve done, not an arbitrary, pre-determined timeline,” Creem said in a statement. “If someone continues to hold the respect and support of the Senate membership, that person should be allowed to continue to serve.”

Like Rodrigues, Creem cited stability and the lasting impacts from the pandemic in making her argument. With Gov. Maura Healey taking office last month, and DeLeo’s successor,  Ron Mariano, starting his second term as Speaker, Spilka is now the most senior of the so-called “Big Three” on Beacon Hill.

“There is tremendous value in stable leadership and institutional memory,” Creem said. 

Sen. Joan Lovely, chair of the temporary Senate Committee on Rules, said the proposed change “reflects similar policies already in place in our Commonwealth.” She pointed to the fact that there are no term limits on the Speaker, other legislative leadership posts, individual lawmakers, or statewide officeholders. 

The Senate will caucus privately on Wednesday and discuss the rule change. Senators are expected to debate and possibly vote on a package of rules for the new two-year session on Thursday.