A Preview of Life in Sacramento Under Term Limits

California voters may have gotten the Legislature of their electoral dreams. Last November, they voted against government and gridlock. Now, with the Assembly thrown into organizational chaos by a bruis ing speakership battle, Californians won’t see governance for a while and gridlock is something to which lawmakers can only aspire.

In the bargain, Californians also got an Assembly that is a throwback to another era. Before the late Speaker Jesse M. Unruh used political favors and parliamentary skills to transform the job of Speaker into one of unrivaled legislative clout, Assembly leaders shared power with their colleagues, and the lower house was ruled by bipartisan coalitions. Today, with neither Republican Jim Brulte or Democrat Willie Brown yet able to snare the 41 votes necessary to seize the speakership, some legislators are reconsidering the model of a speakership based on bipartisan power-sharing.

As Brown acknowledged, “It’s a whole different world. . . . There never again will be the power that was exercised by Jesse Unruh, Bob Monagan, Leo McCarthy and Willie Brown . . . that era has passed. And for those of us who really care, it’s time to build a structure that works in light of the new circumstances.”

This latest speakership battle, like others before it, mirrors the political environment in which it plays out. It offers a preview of life under term limits in a cynical, mean-spirited and rootless political world.

Term limits will produce a more inexperienced, less institutionally grounded breed of legislator. The 40-member Assembly Republican caucus includes 18 lawmakers who are serving their first term. Twelve have served no more than one full term. GOP leader Brulte has only four years of service, as compared with Brown’s 30-year tenure. Many voters will breathe a sigh of relief at those statistics. But hold on.

The inexperience of Assembly Republicans has contributed to their ineptitude in sparring with Brown. If legislative greenhorns can’t count to 41, how long will it take them to learn how to pass a budget?

The Assembly’s ability to organize, let alone govern, may be hampered by chronic instability--a condition triggered by the need for special election after special election to replace legislators who jump to other offices to cheat the term-limit clock.

That’s already boxed in Brulte. GOP Assemblyman Richard L. Mountjoy, who won both reelection to the Assembly and a special election to the state Senate, is in the middle of the fight over lower-house control. Mountjoy wants to stay in the Assembly until a GOP Speaker is installed; the Democrats want him gone.

Meantime, the voters may be the biggest losers in this game of musical chairs. In a closely divided Assembly, each vacancy can trigger a battle for control of the house and every political fight takes time and energy away from the making of public policy.

The recall election is fast emerging as the new political weapon of choice. Republicans have already launched a recall drive against Republican Paul V. Horcher, whose political apostasy deadlocked the house. Democrats are threatening a retaliatory recall against GOP Assemblyman Steve Kuykendall, a Brulte supporter, whose narrow victory was propelled by a huge last-minute contribution by the Philip Morris tobacco company. If legislators must continually fight holding actions to retain their seats, when will they find time to serve their constituents? Will there ever be a quorum ready to do the public’s business?

Before Unruh institutionalized the Speaker’s role in selecting, electing and protecting Assembly members, loyalty to the leader was based on personal and ideological factors rather than on partisan affiliation or campaign support. Lacking the modern leaders’ institutionalized system of rewards and punishments, pre-Unruh Speakers relied on collegiality and sociability to build and sustain governing coalitions. Indications are that these leadership characteristics will again assume heightened importance in the post-Proposition 140 Legislature.

Horcher’s defection underscores that. His decision to support Brown over Brulte was more about personal revenge than political expediency. He has long smarted from slights by, and clashes with, Brulte and the GOP caucus.

Brulte hasn’t been around the Legislature long enough to remember that there are two axioms of politics that apply to a leader who has little power to punish his membership. The first is: “Get it in writing.” (Brulte, it appears, never did.) The second is, as an old-school legislator put it: “Friendship is the most corrupting influence in politics.” Brown’s been around long enough to have served in a legislative process in which friendship frequently outweighed partisanship; Brulte hasn’t. That’s why Horcher’s behavior threw the GOP leadership so badly off balance.

At this point, all the political maneuverings, closed-door plotting and blueprints for ballot-box revenge are just so much inside baseball to most Californians. The current Capitol tomfoolery has not really hit the electorate’s radar screen. Perhaps that’s what Democrats and Republicans are banking on. But the fracas is bound to get voters’ attention if things aren’t settled in a timely manner.

Remember the 63-day state budget impasse a couple of years back? Voters only turned their attention to it when the lack of a budget agreement began to adversely affect their lives, when the specter of suspended government services and payments threatened to hit them directly. Or, in most cases, when the media finally told Californians they were being affected.

The media has already embraced the speakership saga as the political equivalent of the soap opera “Dynasty.” That increases the odds that voters will focus on the leadership dilemma. And when they do, it can only increase their cynicism and disgust with politics-as-usual.

The bad news for Democrats is that they will likely get a stronger dose of voter anger than their GOP colleagues. This has little to do with GOP charges that Brown and the Democrats have “stolen” the speakership election. It’s just that Californians continue to view Brown as the poster child for everything that’s wrong with Sacramento. And they are more likely to visit their frustration with government on him and his colleagues.

Brown long ago began relinquishing the real power of the speakership--the ability to shape and move a broad policy agenda--to maintain his hold on the perks and privileges of the office. On one level, this latest speakership battle is another round in Brown’s--and the Assembly Democrats’--effort to “hold on.” But it’s also more.

Over time, the Unruh model of an activist leader has given way to the Brown model of a Speaker who is little more than a glorified commodities broker, bartering deals among competing interests. Now it appears the role of Speaker will change dramatically once again.

There can be no doubt that there is need for bipartisan cooperation, if a closely divided house is to function in this volatile political climate. But if things continue as they are in Sacramento, whoever wins the speakership fight will assume an office far removed from the Unruh model and closer to that of the Queen of England--the powerless head of a very large, dysfunctional family.*