[council] On the merits of term limits

[Bret Fausett]

We, the voters of California, enacted terms limits in the 1990s, largely
because some incumbents in state office had become exceedingly powerful in
their control of processes and outcomes. The particular target of the
California term limit initiative was Willie Brown, a powerful, progressive
Democrat, who had consolidated power as the Speaker of the California House
of Representatives. A ballot initiative, backed by his Republican opponents,
creating term limits was placed directly before the voters, and it was
approved.

The unforeseen consequence is that we now have musical chairs in our state
capital. In the most recent election, ended this past week, the former
Attorney General became the Treasurer, the former Insurance Commissioner
became the Lieutenant Governor, a number of state representatives became
state senators, and a number of state senators switched over to become
representatives. Anyone who thought that we were going to get new blood and
new perspectives by the use of term limits was mistaken. In California,
we're reshuffling the deck every two years, but we're still playing with the
same cards.

Another consequence of terms limits is that they empower staff over the
elected representatives. When the elected representatives change, the people
who provide continuity, history, and leadership become the people who have
the most experience. With term limits, those people are staff. Neither in
California nor in ICANN do we have term limits for employed staff (nor
should we). In this way, term limits potentially could weaken the Council by
placing too much responsibility for continuity and leadership in the hands
of ICANN's Staff.

Until we've looked at the entire GNSO structure, nothing in the current term
limits proposal would prevent, for example, the ISP Constituency from
electing the current BC Representatives as its Councilors, in exchange for
the Business Constituency electing the current ISP Constituency's
representatives as its Councilors. Even if you tried to prevent that too,
the system still could be gamed by having proxies stand in place as
"councilors" for others. If someone or some constituency is determined to
keep certain individuals involved, you can't prevent that in the current
structure of ICANN.

In my view, the best way to get new blood and new perspectives is to recruit
new individuals and companies with interests in ICANN's work. Over time,
those people will assume the roles we need them to assume. We don't need the
short term solution of term limits that, in time, may create more problems
than it solves. 

         Bret