One of the arguments that is used by advocates of getting rid of, or substantially relaxing 
California’s term-limits law is that we lose experienced lawmakers from policy committees just as they are developing extensive subject-matter expertise. This was the thought in my mind when I first started to hear the ‘buzz’ — that Speaker Fabian Nunez, a term-limits foe, had removed Assemblyman Todd Spitzer (pictured to the right) from the Public Safety Committee. Spitzer, who is entering his third and final term in the legislature is regarded as the GOP’s top ‘subject-matter expert’ on criminal safety issues. Spitzer, a former police officer and prosecutor and county supervisor, has made public safety the number one priority of his legislative career.
Why would the Speaker remove Spitzer — especially when he was due to become the Vice Chairman? We have heard from more than one source that Assembly Republican Leader Mike Villines, when he transmitted the wishes of the minority caucus, relative to committee assignments and Vice-Chairmanships, had specified Spitzer to serve not only on the Public Safety Committee, but as its Vice Chairman.
Of course, making committee assignments is the prerogative of the majority Party. The rules of the Assembly are pretty straightforward — the Speaker has all of the cards. But, of course, no one is questioning Nunez’ ability to kick Spitzer off of the Public Safety Committee. What is being question are the Speaker’s motives, which in my opinion are two-fold.
The to identify the main motivation for the Speaker to ‘nuke’ Spitzer, you need look no further than Spitzer’s very aggressive style — which becomes an important ‘tool’ when you are in the minority Party. Thanks to Nunez, some of the most left-wing radical liberals in the legislature have been on that Public Safety Committee. The amount of common-sense anti-criminal legislation that has died in that committee is staggering. Spitzer has been extremely effective as a member of the committee in really shaming the liberal Democrats, and he has also been an effective spokesman in the media in exposing their weak-on-crime positions.
In one famous incident, the speaker became irate because Spitzer labeled the Democrats on the Public Safety Committee as "Pro-Criminal" (in a column on this website) — and, as it is was written about in the Sacramento Bee yesterday, Nunez waved a printed-out copy of the FlashReport column in Spitzer’s face, yelling obscenities at him. So don’t tell me that the Speaker has any fondness for Spitzer, and his ‘call it like he sees it’ style of legislating.
Of course, you could also look at the fact that the new Chairman of the Public Safety Committee is freshman Assemblyman Jose Solario, who does not have an extensive background in public safety issues. Perhaps Solario was not anxious to have to go toe-to-toe with an articulate and passionate Todd Spitzer, who was absolutely correct when he called the Democrats pro-criminal. As a matter of fact, to help Solario feel ‘at home’ in terms of having no experience on the Public Safety Committee, the Speaker made sure that the two Republicans on the Committee had never served on it as well. The new Vice-Chairman, Greg Aghazarian and his GOP colleague, freshman Joel Anderson – both great guys – have never been on that committee.
Spitzer (who declined to talk with me for this column) is getting a happy-landing of sorts. While he has been ‘dismissed’ from the committee on which he has labored for four years, he appears poised (according to a story in the Sacramento Bee’s Capitol Alert) to be named as Chairman of a select committee on Prison Construction. While that may keep Spitzer occupied, and he undoubtedly will do a good job with that assignment, the reality is that he will be sorely missed on the Public Safety Committee.
The real tragedy here is that Assembly Democrats will continue to treat their criminal constituents with the same level of love and respect that they afford to all of their other constituents (well, perhaps they do prioritize their convicted constituents over one group – taxpayers) — and you can be sure that the most effective, anti-crime ideas that are introduced as bills this year will languish in that committee, which one again has been stacked with a majority of Nunez’ cronies.
Well, I can’t wait until Nunez starts to wax on about how term-limits has caused a "brain-drain" in the Capitol. There may be pros and cons to a limit of three two-year terms for members of the lower house — but right now, the biggest "pro" that I can think of is that at the end of this session, Fabian Nunez will be out of the legislature, and that is especially good news for Californian’s who want to see this state take a strong stand against criminals.
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