During a candidate forum yesterday in Chevy Chase, eight seven of the nine candidates running for the At-Large seat on the D.C. Council announced that they’d be willing to fire themselves after two terms if they were to win the April 26 Special Election.

The statements came in response to a question from a member of the audience, who asked whether the recent scandals in D.C. government hint that elected officials should be term-limited. District residents overwhelmingly voted in favor of term limits for councilmembers in 1994, only to have the option undone by the D.C. Council in 2001.

Bryan Weaver answered first, noting that he voted for term limits in the 1994 referendum and would limit himself to two terms on the council, or eight years in office. He did add a caveat, though — he wants term limits for specific seats, but doesn’t think eight years in a ward-based council seat should preclude someone from running for an At-Large seat or council chair.

Alan Page, Patrick Mara, Josh Lopez, Dorothy Douglas and Interim Councilmember Sekou Biddle all agreed. Lopez added that he would require that all councilmembers be full-time, and said that the District does not need career politicians. (The jab was directed at Vincent Orange, who along with Arkan Haile didn’t attend.) Biddle noted that term limits create a sense of urgency, and that they’re needed to “refresh the system [and] get new people in.”

A February report by the Pew Charitable Trusts comparing the legislatures of 15 cities across the U.S. found that term limits were evenly split — eight cities have them, seven don’t. Amongst those cities that don’t impose limits, the District actually fares pretty well in terms of average tenure for elected officials — 7.5 years, less than Chicago’s 13.3, Baltimore’s 12.5 and Boston’s 7.7. That being said, only 23 percent of the D.C. Council’s members are in their first-term, on par with many other cities, but far below San Diego’s 75 percent, Pittsburgh’s 67 percent and San Jose’s 55 percent.

If a term-limit of two consecutive terms were imposed on the Council today (and applied retroactively), the victims would be Jim Graham (Ward 1, elected 1998), Jack Evans (Ward 2, elected 1991), David Catania (At Large, elected 1997), and Phil Mendelson (At Large, elected 1998). A two-term limit would also prevent Mary Cheh (Ward 3), Harry Thomas, Jr. (Ward 5), Tommy Wells (Ward 6), and Marion Barry (Ward 8) from running again once their current terms are up.

Of course, opinions on term limits have a tendency to change when a candidate becomes a councilmember, so we’ll have to see how firm these stances are if anyone other than Orange wins on April 26.