Legislators Throw In Towel on Hot Issues

Delivering an election-year disappointment to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, legislative leaders gave up on two perennially contentious issues Tuesday: changing how voting districts are drawn and extending the time a lawmaker is allowed to serve in the Senate or Assembly.

The lawmakers conceded that despite a pledge to relinquish the power to determine their district boundaries, they had failed to produce a plan that could be placed on the November ballot. Long-pending legislation remains alive in the Senate, but it faces little chance of going to voters before 2008.

Additionally, lawmakers declared an effort to ease term limits dead for the year.

Though they were able to get beyond gridlock in a number of areas -- approving the first on-time budget since 2000 and forging a $116-billion public works improvement project, for example -- legislators remain stymied over matters that involve their jobs.

“There is no question about the need to reform the redistricting process and our current system of term limits in California,” said a statement issued by the Legislature’s top two Democrats and top two Republicans.

“But given the tremendous impact any proposal crafted by the Legislature this year could have on politics and policymaking in our state,” they said, “we feel it is the best course not to pursue a sweeping reform package in the waning hours of the legislative session.”

The governor had promised to support a change in state term limits -- the most stringent of any legislature in the country -- if lawmakers crafted a redistricting measure. But lawmakers failed to deliver on their pledge to do so, one made last year after they helped defeat a Schwarzenegger-backed redistricting initiative.

Eager to extend their careers, legislators created a bipartisan committee last week to work on both issues but never came close to an agreement

Schwarzenegger said he was disappointed. “Lawmakers missed an important opportunity to move forward with political reform this year,” he said in a statement.

Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez (D-Los Angeles), whose term expires in 2008, had been the most ardent backer of adjusted term limits. But he met indifference from many lawmakers, some of whom would not see their terms extended under his plan, and others of whom count on turnover to open up seats they covet.

Redistricting -- which Republicans demanded be part of any change -- also ran into substantial resistance. Many of the Democrats who dominate the Legislature did not want to give up the power to determine the boundaries of their districts. Republicans also were wary about who would be given the authority to draw their seats.

The leaders vowed to tackle the two issues in 2007.

Lawmakers are rushing to finish their business by the end of the month so they can adjourn for the year.

Still pending in the Senate is a redistricting bill that Sen. Alan Lowenthal (D-Long Beach) introduced the day he took office in December 2004. It would put the power to draw political boundaries in the hands of citizens selected by lawmakers from a pool of candidates named by retired judges.

Lowenthal said he intends to bring the bill up for a vote on the Senate floor as early as today. But as a constitutional amendment, it would require a two-thirds vote for passage, a difficult hurdle for any bill, especially one this contentious.

“I think it will not have significant Republican support,” said Sen. Dick Ackerman of Irvine, leader of the Senate’s Republicans.

Lowenthal has had difficulty winning over members of his own party, and a minority expressed support in a closed-door caucus Monday.

“I always knew it was going to be tough,” Lowenthal said. “You’re asking the Legislature to voluntarily give up power.”

Even if were to pass the Senate, Assembly officials said the lower house has no plans to consider the bill this week, making inclusion on the November ballot all but impossible. Senate President Pro Tem Don Perata (D-Oakland) has said he doesn’t want it on the fall ballot, where it would draw attention away from a package of public works bond measures that are his priority.

Assembly Majority Leader Dario Frommer (D-Glendale) said there is no rush to put anything on the November ballot, because redistricting is a once-a-decade job based on census results.

“We’re not going to redraw the lines until 2010 after the next census is done,” he said. “We could still come to some agreement.... Let’s take our time, let’s do it right.”

In addition to Senate and Assembly districts, state lawmakers redraw congressional and Board of Equalization districts every 10 years to take into account swings in population. It’s common practice for the party that dominates the Legislature to draw those new districts to its advantage, guaranteeing a majority of voters of their party in as many districts as possible.

Government watchdogs argue that a neutral commission is more likely to draw compact districts more evenly divided between Democrats and Republicans, so candidates would have to appeal to voters of all stripes and face more competition. The current districts, they argue, lead to a polarized Legislature, with few moderates to broker deals between liberal and conservative lawmakers.

Political scientists say it may also be time to revisit the term limits voters imposed in 1990, which permit a politician to serve no more than eight years in the Senate and six in the Assembly.

Although term limits have helped bring more women and minorities to the Legislature, they also force a short attention span on lawmakers, experts say, and prevent them from mastering complicated public policy.

“This is now one of the most diverse legislatures in the nation in terms of women and ethnic minorities,” said Senate Majority Leader Gloria Romero (D-Los Angeles). “I will not go back to the past.”

Nunez had been discussing with other lawmakers a proposal to limit legislators to 12 years in office, down from the current 14, but allow them to serve all of that time in a single house.

But widespread polling, by business groups, Democrats, Republicans and unions, found voter resistance.

“Changing term limits is an extremely tough sell,” said Nunez spokesman Steve Maviglio.

With no deal this year, advocates for redistricting want to take the issue into their own hands. Ted Costa is executive officer of the People’s Advocate Inc., the Sacramento anti-tax group that backed Proposition 77, the failed redistricting measure on last year’s special election ballot. He said he and other activists are discussing another such initiative.

The Legislature, said Costa, “didn’t seem to have the will within that leadership to do what has to be done for the people.”