Van de Kamp Proposes Ballot Plan to Limit Lawmaker Terms, Funds

Bringing his campaign for governor to life after laborious weeks of planning, Atty. Gen. John Van de Kamp made a leap for the high ground on government ethics Friday, proposing a ballot initiative to limit terms of state officeholders and the money that flows to them from special interests.

He called state government a “swamp” of mighty special-interest influence. To clean it up, he said, taxpayers will have to pick up a share of the costs of political campaigns for the Legislature, the governorship and other statewide offices.

His gameness in challenging the everyday conduct of government and the willingness to force politicians out of their offices after set terms add up to the most daring move of Van de Kamp’s long and measured political career.

It also is a step born of necessity. The two-term Democratic attorney general and former Los Angeles County district attorney is facing in-depth campaign polls that tell him Californians are not looking for status quo leadership in the 1990 race for governor but are hungry, as one adviser put it, “for someone to turn over the tables.”

This package could do precisely that, putting the two-term Democratic attorney general at odds with legislators and others officeholders in and out of his own party.

“This is a campaign about change,” he said, as if delighted to have picked the fight.

Important Issue

The initiative also gives Van de Kamp--ridiculed by rivals as a “John-come-lately”--something strong to say on an issue destined to play an important part in the 1990 gubernatorial campaign debate: public disquiet about the integrity of government.

Major provisions of the ballot proposition as sketched out by Van de Kamp at press conferences in Burbank, Sacramento and San Francisco would:

- Impose California’s first-ever limits on the consecutive years a person may hold a single office--12 years for the Assembly and Senate and eight years for statewide constitutional officers. The limits would not be retroactive. Instead, the clock would start as of the 1990 elections.

- Ask candidates for the Legislature and statewide office to accept a ceiling on their campaign spending in exchange for public financing of approximately 25% to 40% of their total political budgets. The exact ceiling on each race and the overall costs to taxpayers are still being devised.

- Enact assorted other changes in ethics laws, including a ban on political honorariums and stricter conflict-of-interest restrictions on legislative votes. Future attorney generals would be empowered to appoint special prosecutors in some corruption cases. In addition, public officials, including legislators, would be banned from lobbying state government for a year after leaving office.

“The plain truth is that we have allowed government and politics in California to sink into a quicksand of special-interest money,” Van de Kamp said, reading a prepared statement.

“Yet, we naively expect public officials to crawl through that swamp on a daily basis and come out clean. I’m here today to tell you that if we want clean government, it’s time to drain the swamp.”

Van de Kamp indicated that he will confer with public interest leaders to iron out details of the proposal and give lawmakers in Sacramento one last chance to take dramatic action on their own. Then he said he will proceed with a signature-gathering drive to obtain the 595,485 valid voter names needed to win the measure a slot on the November, 1990, general election ballot.

Announcement of the ethics initiative came at a time when Van de Kamp’s campaign, his status as the Establishment favorite for the Democratic nomination and his image as a “winner” are being called to question by party activists and even some of his own supporters.

Throughout the spring and summer, Van de Kamp has felt pressure to engage more energetically in the 1990 campaign preliminaries. But he resisted, even as rivals seemed to be gaining at his expense.

The attorney general insisted on marshaling and developing an inventory of ideas in private consultation with his team of political advisers and at his own deliberate pace. Campaign manager Richie Ross quoted the lyrics of a 1960s rhythm-and-blues song to explain the virtue of Van de Kamp’s slow but sure methods: “It’s not what you look like when you’re doing what you’re doing. It’s what you’re doing when you’re doing what you’re doing.”

Friday’s proposal for a ballot initiative was the first of a series of announcements resulting from the planning sessions. The package of ideas eventually is supposed to provide the framework and rationale for Van de Kamp’s gubernatorial bid.

He began the sequence with ethics probably because he has been viewed, both by opponents and supporters, as increasingly vulnerable on the issue. This is not because of his own ethics, which so far as is known are untarnished, but because he is California’s chief law enforcement officer at a time when the spotlight on government has come to rest on numerous political scandals. Van de Kamp, to the dismay of political supporters, has been only a bit player in the investigations.

Both of Van de Kamp’s leading rivals have already signaled their own strategies that recognize the public’s growing doubts about the integrity of government.

Shaping Campaign

Dianne Feinstein, the former mayor of San Francisco, is shaping her Democratic primary campaign to present herself as an outsider capable of restoring people’s faith in government.

As for Van de Kamp’s initiative, Feinstein spokeswoman Dee Dee Myers dismissed it, saying, “Perhaps John Van de Kamp is hoping the public will forget the FBI had to come in and investigate corruption in Sacramento.”

Republican candidate for governor Pete Wilson, in his second term as a U.S. senator, frequently draws a parallel between his career 18 years ago and his campaign now. Back then, he left a seat in the Legislature to take over as mayor of San Diego amid a corruption scandal there. Destiny now calls again, he says.

As for Van De Kamp, Wilson spokesman Otto Bos said: “He is going to have a tough time claiming leadership on this since there is nothing, zero, in the record. . . . Where’s he been? He’s really been a John-come-lately.

“He has shown no reluctance to accept PAC money, special-interest money. He’s taken gifts and trips from special interests. . . . The only constant has been his desire for public funds for campaigns.”

Reaction was predictably icy from state legislators, who were not consulted beforehand and who believe the 12-year limit on service is a gratuitous slap at them.

“I just finished 12 years, and I feel better equipped than ever to represent my constituents,” said Assemblyman Mike Roos (D-Los Angeles), who wore a face as long as a loaf of French bread as he watched Van de Kamp’s Los Angeles press conference.

Van de Kamp said the limit on legislative terms was the most difficult decision he had to make in drafting his proposal. He chose to proceed, he said, because “our system of government has hardened into a gridlock of caution, incumbency protection and the servicing of special interests. . . . This change is worth trying because what we’re doing now isn’t working.”

Times staff writer Clay Evans in Sacramento contributed to this article.