Tomorrow will mark the opening of the California Republican Party’s Fall Convention in Indian Wells, out in the Palm Springs area.  At this convention, delegates will have the opportunity to take positions on initiatives that are going to appear on the February ballot (or beyond).  Based on the extremely positive feedback that I have received on my resolution to put the CRP on record as opposing the Don Perata/Fabian Nunez Term-Limits End Run Initiative (yes, their very own ballot measure, funded with politically extorted special interest donations, to extend their time in office for many more years), it would appear that there will be overwhelming opposition to this attempt to weaken term limits…  I am pleased that four important state Republican leaders, all former Chairman of the California Republican Party, have weighed in with an important message to CRP members…

Dear Fellow Republican:

As former Chairs of the California Republican Party, we are compelled to speak out when both the values – and the best interests – of California Republicans are at risk.

The dishonest initiative pushed by liberal legislative bosses Don Perata and Fabian Nunez to gut term limits and increase their power represents such a threat.

That is why we strongly urge you to join us in supporting Jon Fleischman’s Resolution to Oppose the Perata/Nunez Initiative.

The Perata/Nunez Initiative enables Perata, Nunez and 40 other termed out politicians to remain in office and would also allow Perata to remain as Senate President until 2012 and Nunez as Assembly Speaker until 2014 – the end of the next Governor’s term!

Term limits weakens the power of legislative bosses who have a tougher time accumulating – and abusing – power because they are not in office indefinitely. But if Perata and Nunez are successful they will gain dramatically more power and leverage to aggressively push their liberal agenda of higher taxes, more spending, expanded social engineering and more government control over all aspects of our lives.

Given the tremendous advantages of incumbency which results in few officeholders ever being unseated, the Perata/Nunez ploy would also tremendously limit the benefits of any fair reapportionment plan because the number of open and winnable seats would be few.

What’s worse, Perata and Nunez are cynically targeting Republican and conservative voters by trying to trick us into believing their measure is actually a reduction in terms that strengthens term limits.  The outrageous scheme by these liberal Democrats to hang on to power and advance their extreme agenda is based on capturing Republican votes!  

That’s because independent polling shows Californians – particularly Republicans – strongly and enthusiastically support term limits for politicians.  Previous efforts by the politicians to gut term limits have failed so now they are trying to use the voters’ strong support for term limits to actually weaken term limits! They are arrogantly attempting to subvert the will of the people.

That’s why Perata and Nunez had Attorney General Jerry Brown write a misleading Title and Summary to fool voters after polling by the Public Policy Institute of California reported 64% of likely voters opposed their proposed change to term limits when it was explained to them. Now their initiative leads – with Republicans currently its strongest supporters.

But when Republican voters learn the Perata/Nunez Initiative actually guts term limits by greatly increasing terms for 80% of legislators, effectively doubles Assembly terms from 6 years to 12 years and increases Senate terms by 50%, and includes a special incumbent exemption specifically written to benefit Perata that enables some legislators to be in office for 16, 17, 18, 20 and even 26 years, they will turn on this measure with a vengeance.   

Regardless of whether you agree with the voters of California and support term limits or not, the Perata/Nunez Initiative deserves to be strongly opposed as a matter of principle. 

The Perata/Nunez Initiative is bad politics and bad public policy.  It is an abuse of power and an arrogant manipulation of our system that represents politics at its most corrupt, deceitful and self-serving worst.

Nothing less than protecting the will of the people, the philosophical beliefs of our party and the best interests of the CRP are at stake.

Sincerely,

John Herrington
Michael Schreoder
John McGraw
Shawn Steel

Care to comment?  You can do so on this commentary’s truncated entry on the FR blog here.

This entry was posted on Thursday, September 6th, 2007 at 12:00 am and is filed under Blog Posts.