According to a column by the Fresno Bee’s Lew Griswald, Assemblyman (and FR friend) Bill Maze was supposedly surprised in reading on the FlashReport that one of his aides, Bob Smith, is running to succeed Maze in the legislature (term limits will cause Maze to retire.

I don’t buy that for a minute — given the depth of support that Smith has already put together, it is not plausible that his boss would not have heard about it.

That said, while Maze has been a solid conservative legislator, it is disappointing to see him drink the Anthony Adams kool-aid on term-limits.  Guess what, Bill, were it not for term-limits, you probably never would have had a chance to serve.  Now it’s time for others to have their opportunity.

Here’s the relevant excerpt from Griswald’s column today:

"I was definitely caught off guard," Maze said.

Smith, a retired law enforcement officer, works two days a week in the Barstow office, Maze said.

It may be early for potential candidates to speak of ’08 because there’s a move afoot to change term limits.

An initiative petition in circulation proposes to reduce the number of years a legislator could serve, from 14 to 12, but let it all be in one house of the Legislature.

That’d help Maze.

Currently, the law is three two-year terms in the Assembly, and two four-year terms in the Senate.

Maze is in his third Assembly term.

Should the initiative qualify, get placed on the ballot in February 2008 (if the presidential primary is moved to Feb. 5 as proposed), and win voter approval, Maze could run again.

"It’s a coin toss," if the initiative makes it through the hoops and onto the ballot, Maze said, but he favors it.

"The experience with term limits has been disastrous," Maze said.

Read the column online here.

This entry was posted on Sunday, March 11th, 2007 at 12:00 am and is filed under Blog Posts.