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ANNAPOLIS — If Ed Priola is elected to the House of Delegates in November, he doesn't plan to get too comfortable around State Circle.

With the public's confidence in government in the tank and criticism toward entrenched politicians becoming louder, challengers such as Priola, who is running in Howard County's District 13, are hoping to woo disenchanted voters by pledging to honor self-imposed term limits.

"We've got Jurassic government in Annapolis, and we've got to stop that," the Republican said. "Term limits are one answer."

In Maryland, governors can serve only two consecutive terms and some county charters limit how long elected officials can serve. The state has no restrictions on comptroller, attorney general or General Assembly members.

Only 15 states have adopted legislative term limits, according to U.S. Term Limits, a Fairfax, Va.-based advocacy group whose efforts have hit a wall in the past decade. Nebraska was the last state to pass term limit legislation, in 2000.

That's largely because the group has run out of states where enacting term limits can be achieved through citizen referendum, said Philip Blumel, a Florida resident who serves as the organization's president.

But there is still reason to think term limits remain popular.

In 2008, voters in South Dakota rejected by a more-than 3-to-1 margin an effort to repeal legislative term limits. That same year, Blumel said polling showed 83 percent of Americans support some form of limits — the highest number ever.

The idea has some support on Capitol Hill, too. This year, Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) introduced legislation amending the U.S. Constitution to limit senators to two six-year terms and congressmen to three two-year terms.

The interest in term limits among candidates nationwide is a reflection of people's frustrations that politicians are too cozy with special interests and have lost touch with their constituents, Blumel said.

In Maryland, many candidates for state and federal office are talking term limits on the campaign trail.

On the day he formally kicked off his campaign for the 1st Congressional District in January, Sen. Andrew P. Harris called for Congress to enact 12-year term limits. However, in a recent interview, Harris (R-Dist. 7) of Cockeysville, who has served 12 years in the Senate, said he has not committed to limiting the number of terms he would serve in Congress.

"I think this discussion needs to take place," he said. "People are talking about term limits, just like they decided term limits for president was a good idea after FDR."

Congress passed presidential term limits in 1947, three years after President Franklin Delano Roosevelt was elected to his fourth term.

Republican U.S. Senate candidate Eric S. Wargotz, now a Queen Anne's County commissioner, also advocates for term limits when he talks to groups across the state.

"When you're an elected official for 33 years and you've had a coddled existence, how can you relate to people like you and me?" he told the Charles County Republican Club this week, referencing four-term U.S. Sen. Barbara A. Mikulski, who previously served five terms in the House of Representatives.

The lack of political turnover is a bigger problem in Washington than Annapolis, said Kathy Szeliga, a Republican candidate for state delegate in the 7th Legislative District. Still, the General Assembly quashed a bill this year that sought to institute legislative term limits. Szeliga, who is chief of staff to Harris, the lead Senate sponsor on the term limits proposal, thinks the issue needs to be considered.

"Government is supposed to be by the people, of the people and for the people, and professional politicians forget that," she said. "They become an arm for special interests because they've had time to develop those relationships."

Legislators should be limited to two terms just as governors are, contended Del. James J. King, who sponsored the term limit proposal in the House. Without limits, long-serving lawmakers have even more power than the governor.

"If you limit it to two terms, it will change the way people make decisions and why people run for office, I believe," he said. "The more faces and the more turnover you have, it brings different perspectives and more ideas to the table, which I think is healthy in politics."

However, a 2002 survey of 3,500 legislators by the Joint Project on Term Limits found governors have significantly more power in states with legislative term limits.

Many incumbents oppose term limits, unlike King (R-Dist. 33A) of Gambrills, who is running for Senate this year.

Restricting how much time a legislator serves can limit their effectiveness, said Sen. Norman R. Stone Jr., the longest-serving member of the legislature, who is running for a 13th term in November, all but one in the Senate.

Voters should not be prevented from re-electing someone who they feel is representing them well, he said. Incumbents who don't do a good job will be term-limited the old-fashioned way: by losing a re-election bid.

When Stone (D-Dist. 6) of Dundalk was first elected to the House in 1963, he never gave much thought to how long he would stay in public office. Nearly 50 years later, he said he hasn't tired of helping constituents.

Jordan T. Hadfield thinks it is time for Stone to move on. The 25-year-old development professional for the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, who is running against Stone in the Democratic primary, supports term limits. He called it "absolutely ridiculous" that a person would stay in the same office for more than four decades.

"I was told that as a young buck I needed to get in line and wait my turn," said Hadfield, of the feedback he received from area Democrats when he first considered running against Stone. "What would you say to someone who was told to get in line and wait your turn when someone has been in office for [47] years?"