George Smith made a claim in his Oct. 21 column, “Term limits, road signs: A wish list for much-needed political reform,” that can be disproved easily. Smith wrote that term limits make lobbyists more powerful.

Thankfully, we have campaign finance data available from the hundreds of term limits referenda that have occurred in America. In each and every case, lobbyists and the special interests they represent have donated to whichever side wanted to prevent, weaken or abolish term limits.

So, if term limits make lobbyists more powerful, why would lobbyists spend every dime they have to defeat term limits? It’s simply illogical.

The real reason: Lobbyists despise term limits, because owning one legislator for life is a lot easier than constantly building new relationships.

Even Jack Abramoff, widely regarded as America’s most corrupt lobbyist, admitted in “The Book of Jack” that lobbyists dislike term limits because “a representative who stayed in Washington for decades, and was a friend, was worth his weight in gold.”

Let’s just hope Smith bothers to do the research next time, before making more false claims.

Nick Tomboulides

Washington, D.C.

Editor’s note: The author is executive director of U.S. Term Limits, a national organization advocating for term limits at all levels of government.