Limiting of terms gains momentum First of three parts.

A political tidal wave is gathering speed. In its wake is a promise to revitalize American democracy.

It started in Oklahoma on Tuesday night, Sept. 18, when a state constitutional amendment limiting terms of state legislators to 12 years was overwhelmingly approved by voters.

This tidal wave is surging westward to Colorado and California, where term limitation referendums are on the ballot for Nov. 5 general elections.

In the beginning, the term limitation movement focused on a proposed amendment to he Constitution to limit congressional terms to 12 years, a proposal that poll after poll shows has the support of more than 70% of Americans.

This is an old idea, illustrated first in the teachings of the Greek citizen-statesman Cincinnatus and later in the life and writings of Thomas Jefferson.

It's the idea that ordinary people can govern themselves; that politicians who spend their lives in public office weaken democratic institutions; that the phrase "career politician" irritates people like chalk scraping a blackboard.

Earlier this year, a group of Republicans and Democrats formed Americans to Limit Terms of Congress. ALTC didn't catch on at the national level, but it's now providing assistance to term limitation efforts at the state level.

As it happens so often in American life, the winds of change are felt first at the state level, in what the late Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis called "laboratories of democracy." So it is with term limitation. In Colorado, it's Issue Five. In California it's Propositions 131 and 140.

In both states, victory will mark the beginning of a storm that is likely to blow nationwide, as ordinary people become increasingly disgusted with scandal, careerism, a mercenary approach to public service and the inability of professional politicians to conduct the people's business in the public interest.

In fact, in the 125 days since President Bush convened the budget summit to devise a scheme to meet the Gramm-Rudman-Hollings spending targets, Congress has acted on legislation calling for $75 billion in new spending, along with two new major entitlement programs - and this does not include the S&L bailout.

That's why the winds of change are blowing - not just for campaign finance reform, not just for reforming the budget process but to get fresh blood into the process, new people with roots in their communities and connections to the culture of average Americans.

Term limitation promises leaders who come from the community and will return to the community; leaders who think beyond political self-perpetuation.

It promises leaders whose instincts for what is right and wrong will replace polls and consultants; leaders who will raise their hands to vote yea or nay, not just to see which way the wind is blowing.

Next week: The responsibility of business in politics.