The California Term Limits Defense Fund, the committee formed by term limit advocates to oppose any possible ballot measures to weaken California’s existing term limits law, announced earlier in 
the week that they had hired veteran political organizer Bob Adney (pictured) as its Executive Director. Upon hearing the news, I reached out to Adney to welcome him to his new post, and see if we could have a little "on the record" chat about him and his new post. Here is a write up of our Q & A…
FR: So Bob, welcome to California! Why don’t you take a moment and ‘introduce yourself’ to FlashReport readers, perhaps with some of your past political involvement, and maybe a little bit about you personally?
Adney: I started my involvement in politics while in High School. A teacher ran for Mayor in Poughkeepsie, New York and I worked for her campaign. She was a Republican running in an overwhelming Democratic city and she won handily. It was a great experience and I realized then that I had been bitten by the political bug. I left New York and graduated from the University of Maryland. While in college, I volunteered and worked on numerous campaigns. I’ve worked in races on New York, Maryland, and Nevada. One of the political highlights of my career was running a state Senate campaign in Nevada in which a 20 year incumbent was unseated in a huge upset. I’ve also worked for the Nevada Legislature and on two initiative campaigns last year in Nevada.
I am a big sports fan; I like the NY Yankees, Chicago Bears, Orlando Magic, and the Maryland Terrapins. I also like to play sports – including biking, running , and even bowling (after all, I am from Poughkeepsie, New York) in my spare time.
FR: Can you tell our readers about the importance of term limits?
Adney: We need term limits because politics should not be a lifetime career. By allowing politicians to stay in office for as long as they want it allows them to consolidate power – usually at the expense of the public good. Corruption often follows.
What we’ve seen over the years is that it doesn’t matter which party is in control or what level of government you examine, politicians are self-serving and constantly try to take power and decision-making out of the hands of the people. Term limits helps to limit the abuse of power by perk-addicted politicians and keep politicians accountable to the people.
FR: We’ve had some coverage of the Perata/Nunez measure to weaken term limits here on the site, but can you succinctly tell our readers why term limits supporters are so opposed to this measure?
Adney: The California Term Limits Defense Fund is opposed to this misleading effort to fool the voters into gutting term limits. The voters of California passed term limits in 1990 and overwhelmingly reaffirmed their stance in 2002 when they rejected Prop. 45, another scam by politicians to stay in office by weakening term limits.
The measure that Perata and Nunez have put up is a lie – it’s a blatant attempt to deceive the voters of California. They are hiding the fact that this in reality is a dramatic extension of terms for most politicians. Perata and Nunez are termed out next year and their initiative would allow both of them and 40 other state legislators who are termed out to run again. Their initiative is the Politicians’ Protection Act. They benefit from it – not the people of California, 68% of whom say term limits is a “good thing” and only 13% say are a “bad thing” for the state, according to polling conducted by PPIC.
FR: If someone reading this short interview wants to get more involved with fighting efforts to weaken California’s term limits, what should they do?
Adney: They can email me at CATermLimits@gmail.com. Our website will be launched shortly.
FR: Bob, like you I am an ardent supporter of Term Limits. I look forward to working with you and many others to fight off this effort to weaken them here in California.
FR friend Lew Uhler, head of the esteemed National Tax Limitation Committee, and an original sponsor of Prop. 140 (the ballot measure that put our current term-limits in place), had this to say about Adney’s hire: "Bob is an outstanding political organizer and you will continue to see a very aggressive effort by term limits supporters to keep California’s term limits law and keep faith with the people of California."
Care to read comments, or make your own about today’s Daily Commentary?
Just click here to go to the FR Weblog, where this Commentary has its own blog post, and where you can read and make comments.