Resign to Run?

I'm really intrigued by the bill proposed by House Speaker John Harris that requires the governor, lieutenant governor, or a state senator to resign before running for a higher office. The reason I'm intrigued is that I honestly don't know what I think about it.

On the one hand, it's clear that it makes sense that people are best represented by office-holders who devote their full attention to the office they hold and candidates who devote their full attention to campaigning.

But it does strike me that this is sort of chasing the wrong issue. Politicians always have their eye on another office and have always been running for something. If we've made it this far, why change the system?

If you don't accept that (totally weak) argument, consider that even current office-holders are always running for re-election (perhaps a bigger problem on a national level but still true in Alaska) and so are always both an office-holder and a candidate for office. As a result, political considerations are always influencing policy decisions. I'd love to figure out how to sever that link (don't think it can be done, though). Barring that, let's at least try to reduce the amount of time spent campaigning, sort of like parliamentary systems do.

As for the argument that Harris is seeking to curtail Sarah Palin's political ambitions, I honestly don't have an opinion on that. But it does strike me as odd that the people making that claim are Democrats who know that some of their strongest candidates for Ted Stevens' job are current office-holders who might need to resign to pursue the seat.

At the very least, it's an interesting idea.