Term limits kept former senator Tom Baker of Trenton from running for a third term four years ago.

But it didn’t put a damper on his interest in legislative issues.

Baker has become the first term-limited senator to seek re-election after sitting out the required four years. He will challenge incumbent Sen. Mark Christensen of Imperial for Nebraska’s south central District 44 seat.

Term limits has already become part of the election discussion.

Christensen believes elections like this one between a term-limited senator and an incumbent will indicate whether voters really wanted to limit senators’ terms to eight years when they approved the term limits constitutional amendment in 2000 — or whether they just wanted to clean house that one time.

Christensen said he wants to finish the water issues he started during his first term.

People expected him to serve eight years, he said in an interview in his office during the last day of the special budget-cutting session. Then after eight years, voters believe it’s time for someone else, he said.

But Baker says constituents want him back working for them in Lincoln.

Baker said he sat out his mandatory four years, required under the term limit provisions, and constituents have asked if he would return. He was in the first term limit class of 20 senators who could not seek another term in 2006. Another 15 were term-limited in 2008 and cannot run again until 2012.

“I enjoy the work,” said Baker, who served from 1999 to 2007. “I have the time and ability to serve,” he said. And there are all sorts of issues to address, including tax relief, improving the business climate and solving water problems, he said.

Christensen pointed to water as a major issue in his district, which includes the Republican River Valley and the legal dispute over getting enough water to Kansas down the Republican River.

“The water issue has been ignored for far too long,” Christensen said in an e-mail news release about his candidacy.

The Legislature needs consistent leadership and someone that will stand up on the issues, he said, adding that he has never hidden from any issue.

“I enjoy the challenge of finding solutions to situations in my area and in the state,” said Christensen, 47, a farmer, rancher and business broker.

Baker, who was chairman of the Legislature’s Transportation and Telecommunications Committee for four years, said he offers a “conservative, no-nonsense approach to the issues facing our state and communities.”

Baker, 61, is a farmer, rancher and small business owner who lives outside of Trenton.

Christensen, who has served on the banking and judiciary committees, has brought several controversial bills to the Legislature, including regulating sexually oriented businesses, such as escort services, semi-nude dancing in bars and reducing marriage license cost for people who take a marriage preparation class. Two of his controversial bills — allowing church guards to carry concealed weapons and allowing trapping along county road rights of way — passed.

Since both men have records as state senators, Christensen said he expects the race to be about those records. In fact, it will be one of the few times when both candidates have legislative experience, he said.

“I hope this is a race where voters are ready to look at who had bills on subjects people care about,” he said.

Though this is the first time a term-limited senator is seeking another term, two former senators — Brad Ashford of Omaha and Cap Dierks of Ewing — are serving in the Legislature. Both were elected four years ago after an absence from the Legislature. But neither left office because of term limits.

Ashford left after two terms in 1994 to run for Congress. Dierks lost his seat when redistricting pitted him against a fellow senator in 2002.

Some recently term-limited state senators have run successfully for other offices. Lincoln Mayor Chris Beutler served as a state senator for six terms. Former senators Ernie Chambers and John Synowiecki won seats on the new Omaha area learning community school board; Ed Schrock is serving on the Nebraska Public Power Board, and Adrian Smith went on to the U.S. Congress.

Reach Nancy Hicks at 473-7250 or nhicks@journalstar.com