We Can’t Run Government on Auto-Pilot : Term limits: Treating the Legislature like a six-year lottery won’t magically produce better legislators and agendas.

Politics in a democracy is by definition deliberative. It is therefore a frustrating and slow process. It demands that legislative opponents contend with each other’s priorities and conflicting notions of truth.

When finally enacted, legislation is filled with compromise. Few politicians, special-interest groups or the public get what they originally wanted. When pursuing common interest in a highly diverse society, rarely are there absolute political winners or losers.

Sir Winston Churchill once called democracy “the worst form of government--except for every other one.” And while politics, as a tool for achievement, can fall short of being the straightest line between two points, the democratic system is still the best way to govern. Even at its most mediocre and inefficient, democracy offers the hope, the opportunity, for its humblest citizens to air grievances and get relief.

With whatever faults, the American political system--and its California version--works, though not perfectly and sometimes not quickly enough. We are all too familiar with the annual frenzy and squabbling over the state budget. And upset voters are still awaiting auto-insurance reform.

Sometimes the public isn’t aware of the system working, such as when legislators, in a nonpartisan fashion, devised natural-disaster legislation, which has helped to stave off enormous economic and human catastrophe in California.

But our political system works. Not by accident, but because responsive hard-working political representatives exercise leadership often at the urging of the most faint voices. Consider how quickly responsible state lawmakers hammered out legislation in the early ‘80s in response to the AIDS crisis and the needs of its victims. Those laws became national models.

But frustrated Californians, who believe that things can always be better, are being asked to sing along with a dual chorus of national discontent. First, vote the rascals out--which is entirely and properly the electorate’s option. Second, and far more insidious to democracy as we know it, they are being asked to put a cap on the length of time legislators can serve, with the promise that all will be well.

But it won’t. Government just cannot be run on autopilot.

If legislators fail on the job and are perceived as not adequately serving their districts, then get rid of them. Work. Mobilize. Organize. Demonstrate.

Voting is a privilege and a responsibility. It’s hard work, and far too many brave men and women have made supreme sacrifices gaining and protecting that right. Anyone who lived through the era cannot forget the images of civil-rights marches and campus unrest that ultimately led to structural changes in the country with respect to race and war.

By limiting the time a legislator can serve, the relationship between voter and officeholder becomes merely symbolic. It would diminish the mutual demands and expectations of the officeholder and the voter. The length of relationship is the stuff that develops long-range understanding of problems and the courage to pursue their solution.

Nevertheless, some would have you believe that automatic government is much easier. How ingenious! What could be simpler? Instead of working at democracy, thinking about government, the people and issues involved, and deciding what to do about them, we can run California like a six-year lottery. We can recycle legislators like we rent and return videos.

A cap on terms would not magically produce better legislators and agendas. Only the voters can do that through their own passion and spirit for change.

In California, we cannot avoid the reality that governing is a full-time profession and that government is a permanent institution. It is, in fact, the nurturing, growing and experiential environment within government that produces real leaders in a time demanding more leadership, not less.

Sweeping out good legislators along with the bad, lumping them all together, without reference to skill and accomplishment, only means that another permanent group will run the government. The bureaucrats? The special interests? Your guess is as good as mine. When was the last time anyone got anywhere with them? When do they stand for election? When do their terms expire? Where are their homes and community-based offices?

More than 200 years ago, our forefathers rose up and won the system of government and rights that we all take for granted. Last year, people in Eastern Europe, in South Africa and in Beijing’s Tian An Men Square bled and died just for a beginner’s version of this system. In truth, they were fighting for representative government--our kind of government--and freedom from bureaucratic tyranny and stagnation.

By arbitrarily removing freely elected public officials, by doing so out of frustration and spite, we both dismiss the vision these brave people had, and dishonor their sacrifices.