But state Sen. Curt Bramble, R-Provo, who sponsored during the 2003 Legislature a repeal of the old 12-year term-limit law, said Towner's "voluntary pledge" idea is a bad one — as is the idea of term limits in general.

"We already have term limits — it's elections," Bramble said.

In legislative debate last session, lawmaker after lawmaker arose to say there is significant turnover in the 29-member Senate and 75-member House as it is, and so forcing someone off the ballot is unneeded. One House member said the average length of stay in the House is just over four years, or two terms.

While it is true the part-time state House and Senate have regular turnover, it mostly comes not through party delegates or voters kicking an incumbent out. Rather, it comes through voluntary retirements and deaths.

In the 2002 elections, of the Utah House members who sought re-election, 93 percent won. The 16-member freshman class in the 75-member House was the smallest in 22 years.

And there is not much turnover in U.S. House and Senate seats, Towner said. "It looks like (Sens.) Orrin Hatch and Bob Bennett will serve until they die."

Towner said under his initiative petition, a candidate for high office would be given a choice. He could pledge to self-limit his terms or he could take no stand. Whichever he chose, self-limit or no pledge, would appear next to his name on the ballot.

If he did promise to limit his own terms and later went back on that and ran for office beyond his office's term-limit time, then on the ballot next to his name would be: broke his pledge to limit his own terms in office.

The self-limit terms would be four in the U.S. House (eight years) and two in the U.S. Senate (12 years.) They would be eight years (or two terms) for governor, lieutenant governor, attorney general, auditor and treasurer. Once you left office, you wouldn't run for that office again.

For the Utah House and Senate, it would be eight years out of 16 years. In other words, you could serve eight years in the House, then leave for eight years, then be re-elected again for another eight years, Towner explained.

"You could always run again — break your pledge," Towner said.

Bramble said should Towner find a sponsor in the 2004 Legislature, he doubts Towner's bill would pass.

"We don't want to clutter up the ballot with such biased, political rhetoric. It would be the same as putting on the ballot next to your name whether you had once pledged never to raise taxes," Bramble said.

But having such a pledge — or declaration of breaking such a pledge — "would settle this in a constitutional way — because it is all voluntary," Towner said. "The average Joe Citizen, who doesn't pay much attention to elections, would know (at the ballot box) if the person running would truly be a citizen officeholder or a career politician.

"The way things are now, if you serve more than eight years you are so indebted to special interests you can't sneeze without talking to the people who really run the show — the professional lobbyists."

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E-MAIL: bbjr@desnews.com