Term Limit Claims Its 1st Victim : Politics: Proposed city initiative seems to have persuaded Councilwoman Flores to look for a fresh challenge.

The real reason why Los Angeles City Councilwoman Joan Milke Flores decided to seek the Republican nomination for secretary of state is that she figured her current job might not be available much longer. That’s because an initiative limiting Los Angeles’ elected officials to two consecutive terms will, in her estimation, qualify for the November ballot--and will win voter approval. If so, the three-term councilwoman could not seek reelection in 1993.

So, when told by the Los Angeles City Attorney’s office and the state Fair Political Practices Commission that she could legally transfer her $588,000 war chest to a state campaign, Flores did not hesitate. After all, she’s long wanted to move up in politics.

What’s more, her likely target will be Democratic Secretary of State March Fong Eu. Although Eu is a four-term incumbent with high name recognition, her opponents have been weak, and she is not a good fund-raiser. Eu began the year with only $160,000 in cash.

Flores, whose only Republican primary foe may be Los Angeles County Deputy Dist. Atty. Gordon Levy, expects to raise $300,000 at a March 28 Los Angeles dinner. With a $1.5-million campaign goal, she’s signed Republican fund-raiser Joyce Valdez, Sen. Pete Wilson’s rainmaker.

The councilwoman believes Eu, a 1986 U.S. Senate campaign dropout largely because her businessman-husband, Singapore citizen Henry Eu, refused to disclose his assets, is vulnerable on the ethics issue. Flores plans to run on a platform that emphasizes election and political reform.

That may come as something of a surprise to those who watched Flores participate in the City Council’s recent mauling of an ethics-in-government package. But Flores will have an opportunity to partly restore her ethics credibility this week when the City Council votes to place a weakened version of ethics reform on the June ballot.

Initially opposed to public financing of city campaigns, Flores now indicates that she’s open to compromise.

Labor swallowed hard when Gov. George Deukmejian dismantled Cal-OSHA in 1987. It won’t be so accommodating this time if the governor succeeds in qualifying a prison-labor initiative for the November ballot. The constitutional amendment would allow inmates in state prisons and county jails to get a job--except in a strike or lockout situation--to offset the cost to taxpayers for their cell and board. (The state Constitution prohibits the exploitation of convict labor for profit by private business.)

The idea enjoys widespread public support, according to a 1989 California Poll. Deukmejian has channeled more than $50,000 from his political action committee into the May qualification drive. The California Correctional Peace Officers Association has ponyed up another $150,000 for the effort.

But Jack Henning, head of the California Labor Federation, insists that the initiative, despite its language, allows employers a way to use prisoners as strikebreakers. Los Angeles County AFL-CIO chief William R. Robertson says that labor’s “highest priority” will be defeating the initiative. He worries that people who need and want jobs would be denied them by “privateers” recruiting cheap labor.

Gubernatorial candidates John Van de Kamp and Diane Feinstein have agreed to debate six times before the June 5 primary, but don’t get too excited because the two have not settled on what topics will be taken up. The former San Francisco mayor’s subject list runs the gamut. The state attorney general’s includes only those issues on which the candidates honestly disagree.

State Democratic leader Jerry Brown says he would be willing to act as the debate go-between, but his price is stiff: hold off round one until the party’s April 6-8 Los Angeles convention.