Redondo Beach Councilman Fights 2-Term Limit With Ballot Measure

A Redondo Beach city councilman, who is required by the City Charter to relinquish his council seat after his current term, is trying to muster support for a ballot measure to revoke the two-term limit on the mayor and council.

At a time when election reformers statewide are pushing term limits like Redondo Beach’s as a means of campaign reform, Councilman Ron Cawdrey--whose second term expires in 1991--said he wants to ask the voters to reconsider the restrictions they passed 15 years ago.

Cawdrey noted that only the mayor and council members are prohibited from running for reelection after completing two four-year terms. Other elected officials, such as the city attorney, city treasurer and city clerk, face no such restraints, he said, adding, “that’s hardly fair.”

Moreover, Cawdrey said he wants the city to give the mayor a vote in council decisions and add a sixth council district to maintain an odd number of seats. Currently, the mayor can only veto council actions or act as a tiebreaker in the event that one of the five council members cannot vote on an issue. Both of Cawdrey’s suggestions would require a charter change.

He said he will bring his proposals before the City Council on Tuesday and expects them to be approved for the ballot. Mayor Brad Parton said on Friday that he will not veto the proposals, although he opposes revoking the term limits and thinks a sixth council district would be unnecessary.

Parton added, however, that he has been told by county officials that there already may be too many initiatives on the June ballot for Cawdrey’s proposals to be included. If the council approves them, he said, the voters probably won’t see them until November, unless the city calls a special election.

Cawdrey was appointed to the council in 1982 to fill the unexpired term of Gene King, who resigned. The following year, he was elected to a full, four-year term. In 1985, he withstood a recall campaign led by community activists who opposed his backing of a plan to develop the defunct Aviation School campus. He was reelected in 1987 to a term that ends in April, 1991.

Under a City Charter amendment enacted in 1975, the five members of the council and the mayor are ineligible for reelection after completing their second term. If they are appointed to fill a vacancy, it does not count as a full term if the appointment is for less than two years.

The restriction became an issue two years ago when Archie Snow, a two-term city councilman, ran for mayor and lost. Snow threatened to challenge the constitutionality of the limitation, and Cawdrey, a frequent political ally of Snow, proposed to the City Council that the matter be put on the ballot. But Cawdrey was voted down, and Snow dropped the litigation for reasons that he described in an interview this week as “personal.”

Cawdrey’s appeal comes at a time when term limitations are being touted statewide as a means of campaign reform. Atty. Gen. John K. Van de Kamp has proposed an ethics package that would limit statewide officeholders to eight years and members of the Legislature to 12 years. Meanwhile, a grass-roots group has been working since December to limit Los Angeles City Council members to two consecutive four-year terms as a means of opening that City Hall to newcomers.

Opponents of such limitations say they may be illegal in California, arguing that the state has jurisdiction over questions of eligibility to hold office. An appellate court in San Francisco used that reasoning last year to rule that general-law cities--those without charters--cannot impose term limits. But the ability of charter cities such as Redondo Beach to limit terms has never been determined by the appellate courts.

Cawdrey’s argument against the limit is that “it seems that by the time our elected officials get to the point where they know their way around City Hall, they’re out of office.”

“People argue, ‘Well, we voted (unlimited terms of office) down once and we’ll vote it down again,’ but that was 15 years ago,” Cawdrey said. “I want to see if the people still feel that way.”

He acknowledged, however, that he also has a personal stake in the issue.

“The thing that bothers me (about the current charter) is that I can never run for council again. Never!” Cawdrey said. “But I’m part of the electorate, too. So why shouldn’t I be allowed to run?”