密歇根新闻广播 期限限制会让立法者们无法协同工作吗?

In a turn of events that surprised many, Rep. Todd Courser resigned his position on Friday, while Rep. Cindy Gamrat became the fourth state legislator in Michigan's history to be expelled.

John Lidstrom was one of the veteran Lansing political observers watching that expulsion vote, and based on the editorial he wrote about the episode, it's clear he did so with a sense of dismay.

"There's no question this was an extremely difficult situation for the members," he says, "but there's precedence on how these things have been handled in the past."

Lindstrom tells us there was a sense that the members of the House weren't entirely¹ prepared to deal with a situation like this.

But he adds it's not entirely their fault.

"It really is the fault of the decision of the voters, more than 20 years ago now, to put into place term limits," he says.

Lindstrom says term limits, to some degree, handicap legislators' ability to work together.

"The greatest benefit [before term limits] was the ability for people to learn how to work with one another. Get to know what issues they're concerned about, get to understand the perspectives that they're coming from, get to understand that the fact that you're a Republican or you're a Democrat² doesn't mean that one side's on the angels and the other side's with Satan."

Lindstrom says life in the Legislature wasn't perfect before term limits, but "by and large, people could figure out how to take care of problems."

Had the House been operating over the past few weeks without term limits, Lindstrom says House leaders would have been much more proactive in getting together to plan out how they would address the problem.

"You still have to recognize the partisan³ breakdown⁴, but you would try to make this as nonpartisan a process as possible," he says.

Lindstrom clarifies that he doesn't fault Speaker Kevin Cotter for his decision to order the House business office to conduct an investigation⁵, but says it would have looked better for everyone involved had he made that announcement alongside Minority Leader Tim Greimel.

"Speaker Cotter in effect issued a press release at 3 a.m. He probably could have waited until 6 or 7 a.m. after he had chatted with and made things clear with Mr. Greimel," Lindstrom says. "And then he would have relieved a lot of the controversy⁶ that surrounded some of the aspects of the hearings and the investigation."

"This, in many respects, was a failure of the body politics, not the politicians. They didn't know what to do," he says.

1 entirely   

ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地

参考例句：

• The fire was entirely caused by their neglect of duty. 那场火灾完全是由于他们失职而引起的。
• His life was entirely given up to the educational work. 他的一生统统献给了教育工作。

2 democrat   

n.民主主义者，民主人士；民主党党员

参考例句：

• The Democrat and the Public criticized each other.民主党人和共和党人互相攻击。
• About two years later,he was defeated by Democrat Jimmy Carter.大约两年后，他被民主党人杰米卡特击败。

3 partisan   

adj.党派性的；游击队的；n.游击队员；党徒

参考例句：

• In their anger they forget all the partisan quarrels.愤怒之中，他们忘掉一切党派之争。
• The numerous newly created partisan detachments began working slowly towards that region.许多新建的游击队都开始慢慢地向那里移动。

4 breakdown   

n.垮，衰竭；损坏，故障，倒塌

参考例句：

• She suffered a nervous breakdown.她患神经衰弱。
• The plane had a breakdown in the air,but it was fortunately removed by the ace pilot.飞机在空中发生了故障，但幸运的是被王牌驾驶员排除了。

5 investigation   

n.调查，调查研究

参考例句：

• In an investigation,a new fact became known, which told against him.在调查中新发现了一件对他不利的事实。
• He drew the conclusion by building on his own investigation.他根据自己的调查研究作出结论。

6 controversy   

n.争论，辩论，争吵

参考例句：

• That is a fact beyond controversy.那是一个无可争论的事实。
• We ran the risk of becoming the butt of every controversy.我们要冒使自己在所有的纷争中都成为众矢之的的风险。