Brown Assails Initiative to Limit Terms in Office

Assembly Speaker Willie Brown aimed his rhetorical guns at Pete Schabarum’s term limits initiative Tuesday, accusing the Los Angeles County supervisor of a “mean-spirited” attempt to return the state to an era when big-money corporate lobbyists controlled the Legislature.

Brown said legendary lobbyist Artie Samish--made famous in a photograph in which he held a puppet “legislator” on his arm--could have written the measure himself.

“The sleazy, coldblooded special interests are going to see an opportunity and they’re going to be supporting Schabarum because, believe me, they will dominate,” Brown, a San Francisco Democrat, told reporters at a Capitol press conference.

The initiative, Proposition 140 on the November ballot, would limit Assembly members to three terms and state senators and statewide officers, including the governor, to two terms. It also would sharply reduce what the Legislature could spend on its staff and operations and would eliminate the Legislature’s taxpayer-financed retirement plan.

Another measure, Proposition 131, sponsored by Atty. Gen. John K. Van de Kamp, would limit state legislators to 12 successive years in one office--six terms for the Assembly or three in the Senate. The Van de Kamp initiative also would limit statewide elected officials to two terms.

Schabarum, a Republican, could not be reached for comment Tuesday. But Mike Lewis, a spokesman for the Proposition 140 campaign, denied Brown’s charge that the initiative would increase the power of special interests.

“I think it’s a little silly to suggest that the Legislature could be any more dominated by interests than it is today,” Lewis said. “There is going to be fresh blood, a rotation of the seats. Limited terms is going to improve the function and process and the results that the Legislature achieves.”

Brown last spring helped raise more than $5 million--much of it from the very special interests he often attacks--to defeat Propositions 118 and 119, two ballot measures that would have limited the power of lawmakers to draw their own district lines. The Speaker hinted Tuesday that a similar campaign is in the works to defeat Propositions 131 and 140, beginning with a fund-raiser Sept. 13 at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel.

Brown focused his ire on Proposition 140, which he has said he considers a personal attack on his leadership of the Assembly. “This is a mean-spirited effort,” Brown said. “When addressed appropriately, it will be rejected by the voters of this state.”

He said the initiative’s provision to cut the Legislature’s budget by more than one-third would deprive lawmakers of their professional analysts and in turn make them more dependent on lobbyists for their information.

The lobbying corps would be given a further advantage by the initiative because the term limits would force lawmakers out of office just as they were gaining the expertise to be effective, Brown said.

“This is the only time that anyone is suggesting that experience is a liability,” said Brown, who is in his 13th term in the Assembly.

Brown asked: “Would you prefer to be administered for your brain tumor by the surgeon who graduates this year or by the surgeon who has been practicing for 10 years and never lost a patient? There is no question which one you’d prefer to . . . do a number on your brain tumor.”