There are a number of stories today about a likely scenario where a truly bi-partisan agreement* in Sacramento may lead to the California Presidential Primary being moved up to the first Tuesday in February in 2008, clearly increasing the relevance of Californians in influencing the selection of Party nominees for President and Vice President. I’ll be weighing in on this issue later in the week. Unspoken of in these stories, however, is a subtext that I have heard bantered around that by having a statewide Presidential election in February, 2008, separate from legislative elections that would still take place in June, legislators hope to take a crack at loosening California’s term limits laws, passed by the voters, which say that a legislator can serve only three terms in the Assembly, and two terms in the Senate. I can only say that the legislative placing a measure on the ballot to relax their own terms is a fools errand. Term limits are popular with the electorate, and there is simply no practical way voters are not going to see a move such as this to be anything but self serving. I guess language could be placed in the measure that says that relaxed limits will only apply to legislators elected for the first time after its passage — but somehow I don’t think that we’ll see that in there.
**There is more – click the link**
January 20th, 2007 at 12:00 am
This is an interesting post, but it will clearly need some legal dancing if it is to work. The problem that I see is that election results are not certified until some time after the election takes place and even with a February primary changing the Term Limit’s law, with the current calendar (which requires an early declaration of intent that inelgible candidates cannot file) there is no way that I can see for an incumbent whose term is up in 2008 to file in time.
January 20th, 2007 at 12:00 am
The filing deadline for the June primary is March 7th. The proposal is to move the primary up to Feb. 5. Short of a razor-thin victory margin, the result will be clear long before March 7th, and officially certified just before the 7th.
But just because it can be done does not mean it should be done!
Also, note that, depending on the specific wording, allowing “12 total years” does not allow Perata another term in the Senate — that’s going to complicate things!