Term Limits, on balance, have been good for California. Term limits have been around long enough now that there are actually a lot of people involved in politics who really don’t remember what it was like before they were voted into place by the California electorate back in 1990. What we had before term limits was the era of the career politician. You know how your local Congressman has been in office for what seems like a lifetime? Well, that is how it used to be for members of the Senate and the Assembly. In many cases, members of the legislature never had any other career before leaping into state house. Once they got there, legislators would serve in office for decades (or even longer). This created a system where the personal relationships became the dominant factor in the Capitol — which ended up primarily serving the ends of crafty politicians like uber-Speaker Willie Brown. Now there is a healthy turn-over of legislators that insures that those who are elected do not lose touch with those that put them in office.
Unfortunately, because of the grossly unbalanced legislative districts crafted by a politician-drafting redistricting plan, we still have liberals dominating the California legislature. So term limits has not brought about a lessoning of the growth in the size and scope of state government. But it truly is a step in the right direction. Existing term limits, combined with a fair redistricting, would combine to provide Californians with a unique opportunity to see a change in the dominent ideology of the Capitol — away from the far left extreme views that drive public policy in the state.
That said, there are some out there who are critical of our current term limits. They argue that it means that politicians are always looking for their ‘next political office’ and that the turnover of legislators has resulted in a shift in policy expertise away from lawmakers and over to lobbyists. Well, I would actually argue that a politician who is looking for their next job, by necessity, needs to be thinking about what the voters back home are thinking and what they want. And as for policy expertise – I am okay with elected representatives relying on policy experts around them for input. This is far better than what we had before — with entretched multi-decade incumbents who, for all purposes, lived in Sacramento.
Mandated term limits are an imperfect solution to be sure. The ideal term limits would come from an electorate being unhappy with a politician, and voters choosing to turn them out. But as a practical matter, in America, uncumbancy is tantamount to eternal occupancy of a political office. This is why the voters passed term limits in the first place. They liked the general idea of turnover, but did not want to have to single out their own legislator. They supported this broad proposal for all — and they still very much do.
Term limits remain popular in California, and most voters oppose weakening the six and eight year limits, in the Assembly and Senate respectively. It would be a perilous vote, indeed, for a Sacramento legislator to cast a vote to place a weakening of term limits on the ballot. Especially if that politician wants to run for another office…
Today we feature a column from U.S. Term Limits President Paul Jacob on this very subject that is worth reading!
**Note, in this column last Friday, I erroneously claimed that the Capitol Morning Report is distributed to some at no charge. Let me state for the record: If you want to buy the CMR, they are happy to sell it to you. But there is no such thing as a free breakfast, or a free subscription to to the CMR!**
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