Legislators attribute heightened partisanship to term limits

JEFFERSON CITY — If some Missouri legislators could go back in time, they'd change or remove the limits placed on how long legislators can serve in each house.

It's not that they necessarily want to stay longer, it's that they attribute the increased partisanship over this past legislative session to term limits.

The session was filled with filibustering, personal attacks leveled by legislators and a protest by the House over the Senate's failure to pass one of their economic development bills.

Term limits, which voters adopted by a 75 percent margin in a 1992 constitutional amendment, prevent legislators from serving more than four two-year terms in the House and two four-year terms in the Senate.