There are no lengths to which elected officials won’t go to escape term limits that threaten their political career plans. In California, Democratic state legislative leaders Fabian Nunez and Don Perata are struggling to evade a 1990 law limiting their terms that was approved by voters. First, they put a misleading measure watering down term limits on next Tuesday’s primary ballot. Then they pressured special interests and unions into contributing $15 million into promoting it.
But voters appear to be rejecting the sham measure, Proposition 93, which Messrs. Nunez and Perata are touting as a refinement of term limits when the real goal is to give 42 current members of the legislature more time in office. A major reason for the public’s resistance to the idea has been $2.5 million in ads highlighting its flaws that were paid for by State Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner, the only elected Republican state-wide other than Governor Schwarzenegger.
That has raised the ire of state legislators who see Mr. Poizner’s efforts as taking away their iron rice bowl. Mr. Poizner described for the Sacramento Bee this week "the threats I’ve received from legislative leaders about what they might do to my Department of Insurance because of my active involvement with the No on 93 campaign." He noted that his department’s budget must win legislative approval.
"There have been direct and indirect threats that have been delivered to me, crystal clear, about be careful of what the Legislature can and will do to you if you continue to push so hard," Mr. Poizner told the Bee. He declined to name those who had actually threatened him, but said their warnings had been "delivered in a crystal clear way."
The office of Assembly Speaker Nunez is having none of this. "It’s hogwash, complete hogwash," Nunez spokesman Steve Maviglio says. He insisted that relations between the two offices were cordial. "The only thing that Steve Poizner should be threatened by is the continuation of his reputation as a political lightweight who runs losing campaigns," Mr. Maviglio said later in a written statement.
Hmmm. That doesn’t sound all that cordial to me. Let’s just say that the best protection Mr. Poizner has right now is the fact that Messrs. Nunez and Perata will have to leave office later this year should Proposition 93 fail. That alone severely limits the damage they could do to his office, and represents yet another useful byproduct of term limits.