House, Senate Term Limits to Go Before Voters

An initiative to limit the terms of California’s U.S. senators and representatives has qualified for the November ballot.

Riding a crest of anti-incumbent sentiment, backers of a national movement to limit congressional terms said Wednesday that they expect voters in at least 12 states to consider such measures in the fall.

“We’re not alone,” said political consultant Tim Carey, who directs Citizens for Term Limits, the committee set up by former Los Angeles County Supervisor Pete Schabarum to win passage of the measure. “Voters want some controls, some limits, some turnover.”

The California initiative follows on the heels of a 1990 initiative--co-authored by Schabarum--that won voter approval and limited the terms of the governor, legislators and other elected state officials. The first round of term limitations in Sacramento begins in 1996.

The vote on congressional term limits will come just as Californians choose a record 52 members for the House of Representatives. Those numbers should give the state’s delegation enormous clout, and some longtime California representatives occupy powerful positions in the House.

If the measure were to pass, those members would be forced out after 1998, while members of non-limit states would be able to continue in office. Seniority plays a significant role in the clout of House members.

A number of legal scholars have questioned the constitutionality of states individually setting term limits for their elected federal officials, but there has been no court test. In a 1990 initiative approved by voters, Colorado became the first--and so far only--state to impose federal term limits.

Under the California initiative, members of the House of Representatives would be barred from the ballot if they had served six years or more in the previous 11 years. U.S. senators would be barred from the ballot if they had served for 12 years or more in the previous 17.

The measure allows those who would be barred from the printed ballot to conduct write-in campaigns and, if elected, continue in office.

But for the most part, the initiative would force the state’s 52 members of the House and its two U.S. senators to run for other offices or sit out before running again for their positions.

The clock would not start ticking on incumbents until January, 1993, allowing House members to serve continuously through 1998 and senators through 2004.

Last year, voters in Washington state rejected a more stringent term-limit initiative that would have forced all of their representatives to step down after 1994--including Democratic House Speaker Thomas S. Foley.

The campaign against the initiative was aided by charges that California’s congressional delegation would fill in the power vacuum created when Foley and other Washington state representatives were forced out of office.

Washington is among 15 states where term-limit backers are attempting to place initiatives before voters this fall.

Thus far, in addition to California, federal term-limit measures have qualified for the fall ballot in Michigan, Wyoming and South Dakota, said Cleta Mitchell, director of the Term Limits Legal Institute in Washington, D.C.

Mitchell, a former Democratic legislator from Oklahoma, said that initiatives are likely to qualify in a total of 12 states, including Florida, Ohio and Massachusetts.

She said attempts to bar such measures from the ballot on constitutional grounds have failed. The voters in any of the 23 states that permit initiatives are free to set standards for their members of Congress, she said.

However, a number of constitutional scholars disagree with that conclusion, asserting that states may not impose requirements for federal elected officials in addition to those spelled out in the U.S. Constitution.

“In my judgment, the issue is absolutely clear,” said conservative constitutional scholar Bruce Fein. “Any attempt by a state to impose more criteria on a candidate is unconstitutional.”

Fein said the term-limit movement has a “cathartic effect,” allowing voters to express their frustration with government. But he predicted that the California initiative, as well as those in other states, would not survive court scrutiny.

Stanford Law School professor Gerald Gunther, a constitutional scholar, agreed with Fein’s analysis. “The first time I heard about the movement, I was a little startled by the notion that a state thought it had the power” to limit federal terms in office,” Gunther said. “All I can say at first blush is you have to show me. I’m highly dubious.”

Both Gunther and Fein point to a 1969 U.S. Supreme Court case in which the court ruled that the House of Representatives was wrong in refusing to seat Rep. Adam Clayton Powell of New York as long as he met all the requirements for office set forth in the Constitution.

To qualify for the ballot in California, supporters of federal term limits had to submit 384,974 voters’ signatures. After spending more than $300,000 to circulate the petition, Schabarum and the other sponsors submitted more than 600,000 signatures for validation.

Secretary of State March Fong Eu announced this week that a sampling of signatures by 50 of the state’s 58 counties showed that the measure had easily qualified.

A number of California House members of both parties have risen to key positions in Congress. Rep. Vic Fazio, a Democrat from West Sacramento, is chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and is considered a candidate to become House Speaker one day.

Other Democrats chair important House committees, including Rep. Leon E. Panetta of Monterey, who heads the Budget Committee; Rep. George Miller of Martinez, who chairs the Interior Committee, and Rep. George E. Brown Jr. of Colton, who leads the Science, Space and Technology Committee.

On the Republican side, Rep. Jerry Lewis of Redlands is the third-ranking GOP House leader, chairing the House Republican Conference.

Times staff writer Paul Houston contributed to this story.