Run, Marty, run

It's time to put a nail in the term-limits coffin

Marty Meehan is a walking advertisement for why term limits are a bad idea. Elected to Congress in 1992, he rode that year's anti-incumbent wave by promising to serve no more than four terms. Now, as he enters what was supposed to be his final term, he faces a dilemma. Should he step aside just as he's coming into his own? Or should he tell his constituents he made a mistake?

Meehan provided his own answer to that question last week, by holding a $38,000 fundraiser even though he already has $1.1 million in his campaign fund. "I haven't made a firm decision to run again, but I am taking a serious look at it," Meehan told the Boston Globe. But he conceded that, despite some family concerns, he is "leaning yes."

Good for him. Another congressional campaign by Meehan would send a strong signal that the brain-dead antipolitics of the late 1980s and early '90s is gone. More important, it would keep one of the House's rising young stars right where he ought to be. Meehan, 42, a Lowell Democrat and a former Middlesex County prosecutor, has emerged as a leader on such issues as anti-tobacco legislation and campaign-finance reform. He's also gained something of a national platform in the impeachment debacle thanks to his thoughtful, articulate condemnation both of President Clinton's shameful conduct and of the partisan get-Clinton effort promoted by Republican extremists.

Certainly there is a measure of cynicism and ambition in Meehan's shifting posture on term limits. He is widely thought to be one of the Democrats' top hopes for governor in 2002, though his wings were clipped recently when Governor Paul Cellucci, with the gleeful assistance of the Democratic legislature, passed a law prohibiting federal officials from transferring their campaign money to state accounts. If Meehan intends to run for governor, he needs to maintain his visibility, and another term in Washington would certainly give him that.

But breaking his ill-considered term-limits pledge would be the right thing to do. Since Meehan is such a strong supporter of campaign-finance reform, here's a suggestion. He should drop the Hamlet act and announce he's running for reelection now, giving any potential opponent plenty of time to put together a credible campaign. He should also agree to tough fundraising and spending limits. A reelection victory under such circumstances would be a mandate for real change -- rather than the phony change he trumpeted seven years ago.

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