Legislators Coming to Terms With Limits on Their Tenure

Say goodby to a state Legislature full of political pros.

Alan Heslop, professor of government at Claremont McKenna College, says the term limit initiative upheld by the state Supreme Court this month will lead to the replacement of professional politicians with citizen-legislators.

“We’re going to have a better Legislature,” he said. “We’re going to have higher caliber people.”

Not so, says state Sen. Ruben S. Ayala (D-Chino), who has been in the Senate since 1974.

“The state is going to be run by consultants, analysts and lobbyists . . .,” he said. “In 10 years, people are going to be sorry.”

The full effects of the initiative will not be known for years. But for those lawmakers representing the San Gabriel Valley, one fact is inescapable: Under Proposition 140, none of them can hold onto their current seats beyond 1998. And the majority will have to give up those offices by late 1996.

The initiative approved by voters last year gives Assembly members a maximum of three two-year terms and senators two four-year terms. That means Assembly members who are reelected in 1992 and 1994 cannot run again in 1996. Incumbent senators can win only one more term, which would carry half of them through 1996 and the other half through 1998.

“They’ve put us in the same category as felons--we can’t run,” said Assemblyman Richard Polanco (D-Los Angeles), a strong opponent of term limits.

The ban is for life: Lawmakers may never again run for the same office after reaching their term limits. Some political observers, though, have speculated that the lawmakers may flip-flop positions, with senators running for the Assembly and vice-versa.

Polanco said he will not be ready to retire from the Assembly in 1996, when he will be 45. He has spent his life preparing to serve in the Legislature, working as a legislative aide before winning his seat in 1986.

“I have geared my career path to be an elected representative,” he said, and even though voters might want to continue to reelect him, “I will be denied the right to run.”

The state will replace a knowledgeable Legislature with an inexperienced one at the mercy of special interests, Polanco said. Lobbyists “will be able to pull the wool over the eyes of legislators,” he said.

Sen. Frank Hill (R-Whittier) agreed. Turning the Legislature over to neophytes will strengthen the hand of lobbyists and bureaucrats, he said, because legislators with expertise on specialized topics will have departed. For example, Hill said, he looks to Ayala for guidance on water policy issues because Ayala has been working in that field since the 1970s. Similarly, his own expertise in bilingual education is helpful to his colleagues, Hill said. By discarding veteran legislators, the state will be giving up “a tremendously valuable resource,” he said.

Hill also thinks the inexperience will make the Legislature much less effective in imposing its will. Administrators cannot get away with offering the same excuses for inaction year after year to experienced legislators, he said.

But Heslop, a research associate at the Rose Institute of State and Local Government at Claremont McKenna, said the loss of legislative expertise and experience is a small price to pay for reform.

“It’s true that (the new legislators) won’t be acculturated in the folkways of the Capitol,” he said. “But that’s not a detriment. It’s a major advantage.”

Newcomers, the professor said, are more likely to shake things up.

“It’s the freshmen who take the feisty view, ready to fire staff and tangle with lobbyists,” he said.

Faced with term limits, Heslop said, legislators will lose their preoccupation with campaign fund raising and can focus on state problems. Under the current system, he said, legislators “will do almost anything to stay in office. . . . There has never been a Legislature more vulnerable to cash.”

Freshman Assemblyman Paul Horcher (R-Diamond Bar), who supported the initiative, said the notion that someone must be in Sacramento for years before becoming effective is wrong. Indeed, he said, he has sat with legislators who have been in office for years “and they still don’t get it.”

The prospect of “an amateur Assembly” does not bother him, Horcher said, because “I’ve never considered myself a professional politician.”

Assemblyman Richard L. Mountjoy (R-Monrovia) said he was well prepared for Sacramento when first elected in 1978, because he had served eight years as councilman and mayor in Monrovia.

“When I got there I was not lost,” he said.

Some observers, including Heslop, have decried the fact that the ranks of the Legislature have increasingly been populated by people whose entire lives have been spent in politics, going from college political clubs to service on political staffs to running for office, with no other significant career in between. As a result, some legislators are more at home in Sacramento than in their own communities.

Heslop said term limits will open up the process, producing legislators who know what ordinary life is like in their districts and who have a better understanding of their constituents’ problems.

Sen. Bill Leonard (R-Big Bear), whose district includes part of the eastern San Gabriel Valley, said term limits will discourage some people from running for office. For example, a person who has a small business might be willing to give it up for a long political career, but would not do so for a maximum of six years in office. So, he said, the new rules virtually exclude small business owners from the candidate field.

Leonard said one legislative leader suggested that the revamped Legislature will be mostly populated by teachers, who would be able to take a six-year career break. Another leader, he said, suggested that big companies will increase their influence over the Legislature by giving favored employees leaves of absence to serve.

Sen. Newton R. Russell (R-Glendale) said he expects many candidates will be people who are ready to retire from their careers.

Ayala said “those who have a difficult time getting a good job” will run, but those in the middle of promising careers will not.

“There will be a lot more lawyers and people who are wealthy,” Assemblywoman Sally Tanner (D-Baldwin Park) said.

Nevertheless, Monterey Park City Councilwoman Judy Chu said she is not worried about a shortage of qualified candidates.

“It’s such a powerful position there will be plenty . . . ,” she said. “Women and people from minority groups will welcome the chance to participate.”

Jose Calderon, director of the West San Gabriel Valley chapter of the League of United Latin American Citizens, said the forced departure of incumbents will open seats to minorities who have been underrepresented. But those elected may not be in office long enough to be effective, he added.

Assemblyman Pat Nolan (R-Glendale), disagrees, saying a limit to their time in Sacramento may make the next generation of legislators more effective, not less. The notion that newcomers are going to be cowed by lobbyists and staff is wrong, he said.

“Shrinking violets don’t run for office,” Nolan said. “(The new legislators) will go in with things they want to accomplish, will know they only have a short time to do it and will be more aggressive about pursuing it.”

Nolan said term limits would not have been necessary if legislative district lines had been drawn to permit competitive elections and not to protect incumbents and the party in power. Only a handful of incumbents has been defeated in recent years, he said.

Nolan, 41, added: “I was in the eighth grade when (Assembly Speaker) Willie Brown was elected.”

With incumbents and their massive campaign war chests out of the way, the election process may open to newcomers, but they will still face the task of raising money for campaigns that often cost hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Robert Gouty, a Covina-based political consultant, said wide-open races will produce lots of potential business for consultants, but the consultants will have to worry about getting paid.

Special interests in Sacramento are accustomed to funneling donations to sure winners, usually incumbents in politically safe districts. But with reapportionment in the hands of the state Supreme Court, and with incumbents facing term limits, many elections are likely to become highly competitive, and the special interests may hold onto their money while the candidates sort themselves out.

Gouty said the special interests often tell candidates in wide-open races, “You win your primary and then call us.” That kind of caution, he said, is going to make fund raising difficult.

Leonard said he would prefer to remain in Sacramento, but might run for Congress if reapportionment creates a suitable district. If the term limits had not been enacted, he said, he would take a “dimmer view” of such a move.

Nolan said he expects to seek reelection next year, but will look at other options, such as the Senate or Congress, after he sees how the district lines have been redrawn. And since he has a young family, the legislator said, he may want to work outside government, where he could make more money.

Hill said he intends to run for reelection next year, and then for a statewide office, such as controller or treasurer, in 1994.

Mountjoy and Tanner said they expect more crossover between houses. It has been common for Assembly members to move to the upper house, but now they expect to see some senators run for the Assembly after their terms end.

Who’s Leaving When

Under the term-limit initiative upheld earlier this month by the state Supreme Court, all of the 80 members of the Assembly must give up their current seats in 1996. But the term limits for California’s 40 state senators take effect on a staggered schedule, with some required to give up their current seats in 1996 and others in 1998. Here are the departure dates for senators whose districts include parts of the San Gabriel Valley:

1996

Frank Hill

Bill Leonard

Newton Russell

1998

Ruben Ayala

Charles Calderon

Don Rogers

Art Torres