But mandating term limits for elective office in the executive branch, or in the legislative branch, for that matter, is a bad idea that resurfaces every so often, usually when there is unhappiness that voters have seen fit to keep someone in office election after election.

Exhibit A: Mike Leavitt. The relatively moderate Republican was thrice elected to the governorship. Leavitt engaged in some nasty battles with the Republican legislative leadership and earned the undying enmity of the more conservative elements of the party. So much so that his popular successor, Olene Walker, Leavitt's lieutenant governor for nearly 11 years before Leavitt resigned to run the Environmental Protection Agency, was snubbed by delegates at last year's state convention and didn't even make it into the GOP primary.

Huntsman's term-limit initiative, therefore, will have some never-again appeal to some legislators in this post-Leavitt-Walker session, especially since Huntsman isn't calling on legislators to go and do likewise with seats in the Legislature.

Senate Joint Resolution 11, being carried for the governor by Sen. Carlene Walker, R-Cottonwood Heights, proposes this amendment to the Utah Constitution: "A person may not be elected to the office of Governor more than twice." If the resolution is passed by a two-thirds majority of both houses of the Legislature, Utah voters would decide by simple majority whether gubernatorial term limits become law on Jan. 1, 2007.

We oppose term limits for any elected office in part because imposing them presupposes that voters don't have the sense to kick someone out of office if they don't like what he or she is doing in their behalf. If voters want to retain a willing incumbent, that is their right, be it for a third, or a seventh, term.

Also, good governance is largely an acquired skill with a considerable learning curve. Term limits unfortunately ensure that hard-won experience, institutional memory and expertise developed by elected officials and their appointees all will have a short shelf life, even if these strengths are seen by voters as essential to meeting the challenges facing a city, county or state in a given election year.

"Change is healthy," Sen. Walker argues, and it certainly can be. But mandating change by law to, in her parlance, clear out the "dead wood," is an abuse of the electorate, which rightly commands sole term-limiting authority at the ballot box.