Lame Ducks, Newcomers as Allies : The old and new members of the Legislature have an opportunity to break the gridlock in Sacramento.

After 14 years in the Legislature, I’ve reached “lame duck” status along with 11 of my colleagues in the California Senate. In four short years, after 220 cumulative years of service to the Senate, we’ll head our separate ways as required by Proposition 140’s term limits.

Between now and 1996, each of us will, at one time or another, search our souls and wonder what “legacy” we want to leave for California. Is it the contribution of our name to a freeway or community center? Or is it a series of thoughtful legislative achievements that helped solve some of California’s chronic problems?

If our terms ended today, we’d probably be a little concerned about that legacy. The Legislature’s public image has reached its lowest level on record. While there have been individual successes, the body as a whole remains hopelessly unable to address the real concerns of Californians.

For example, our attempt last fall at reforming the state’s job-killing workers’ compensation system was a dismal failure. And more than four years after voters signaled their disgust with high auto insurance costs via Proposition 103, rates are higher than ever and we still haven’t approved a comprehensive solution.

Every year it seems welfare and tort reform, workers’ compensation, auto insurance, affordable housing, education, and health care are at the top of our agendas--but they reappear each year because we’ve never adequately addressed them.

Yes, although we pass thousands of pieces of legislation each session, their effect is merely to tinker with existing laws. We’ll set up a pilot program here and convene a study group there--as California’s real problems boil over on a back burner.

What’s the problem with our legislators? Part of it is the tendency to legislate by special interest. Many members, when asked to support a proposal that seems like a good idea but has no organized (read “lobbied”) support, will not do so. Special interest lobbyists prowl the Capitol halls protecting their clients from the scariest legislation of all--that which brings change. A successful year for many lobbyists is one that sees no new laws affecting their clients.

Quite simply, good legislation requires making an interest group angry. Sadly, few legislators are willing to take the hits.

While tenure brings knowledge and familiarity with the legislative process, our 220 years of service also bring an unwillingness to disturb it. That’s why many of us “lame ducks” look with excitement to the 27 new members of the Legislature. While we need their new votes and new perspectives to establish a legacy, they ride a movement to bring “change” to the way the Legislature does its business. Only an alliance between the lame ducks and the newcomers will be able to break Sacramento’s gridlock.

It’s a tremendous opportunity (and obligation) for both groups. Besides resurrecting old (but good) ideas killed by partisanship, we can look to the new members for innovative solutions to old problems.

These are new legislators not bound by old standards. They come from private industry and local government, jobs which by their very nature require concrete action and accountability. Having just arrived in Sacramento, they won’t know or care which member not to make mad and which members play the “I’ll Vote for Your Bill Only if You Vote for Mine” game. Maybe, just maybe, they won’t have to know. Maybe their enthusiasm will overcome barriers that have impeded others.

For me personally, the alliance gives me hope of passing legislation to bring strong reform to California’s regulatory processes. For others, it’s a chance to enact sensible “no-fault” auto insurance that is biased only toward the consumer. For a majority of legislators who recognize that a better workers’ compensation system means making enemies of almost all the parties involved, it’s a chance to make California job-friendly once again.

I have to wonder, though, if I’m being too naive about the likelihood of meaningful change. Gov. Pete Wilson, preparing for reelection in 1994, will have his hands full as he tries to forge policy consensus with both Capitol Democrats (in safe control of both houses of the Legislature) and the often fractious Assembly Republican Caucus. Wilson’s opportunities in 1993 are many--but so are the barriers put up by his detractors. We also cannot overlook the power of the lobbyists and their ways of ingratiating themselves with new and old members (remember that their faces and pocketbooks are not subject to any term limits).

My sincere hope is that this year all legislators will realize that we keep confronting the same problems we’ve faced for the past several years not because they’re insurmountable, but because we’ve simply refused to act.

We’re in a downward economic spiral where demands on services outpace our struggling tax base. The result has crippled us so completely that we’ve become a Legislature that responds only to massive crisis. And too often even our weak response is too little, too late.

To the people of California, who trusted us once to sensibly legislate away their problems (and to stay out of the way where no problems existed), we must be a tremendous disappointment. The millions of dollars you spend to run a full-time Legislature have hardly paid for full-time results.

As the 12 departing senators strive to leave California with something positive to remember us by, we can reach out to the newly elected men and women making their first attempts to beat the daunting Sacramento odds. If our shared commitment to a better California and a better Legislature cannot bring meaningful change, nothing will.