Term Limits Ruling a Boost for Bustamante

Cruz Bustamante, most likely, wasn’t going to get booted as Assembly speaker anyway, regardless of all the speculation and rumors. And when a federal court dumped legislative term limits Tuesday, that pretty well clinched it.

The Supreme Court still could reverse the appellate ruling, but for the indefinite future, Bustamante has been cured of lameduckitis. He no longer is seen as a short-timer, automatically term-limited after next year. That makes him somebody to mess with only very discreetly.

Veteran consultant Richie Ross, Bustamante’s chief strategist, puts it this way:

“The power of the speakership is reward and punishment. In a termed-out speakership, rewards last about as long as an ice cream cone and penalties as long as a rap on the knuckles. Now, rewards are going to last as long as a jawbreaker and punishments will be like a broken jaw.”

As the philosopher once said, “Politics ain’t beanbag.” It’s hardball. And Bustamante hasn’t played enough of it, even his friends complain.

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Bustamante has been tagged with “weak leadership” since January, when the rookie speaker procrastinated in naming committee members for the 1997 session. But because he is the Assembly’s first Latino speaker and a likable guy, most people deep down wanted to see him succeed. So the moderate Democrat from rural Fresno was given some slack.

“People aren’t hostile toward Cruz,” noted Senate leader Bill Lockyer (D-Hayward). “He’s not one of those figures people despise.”

As the year progressed, however, more legislators talked privately and critics wrote publicly about Bustamante being indecisive and confused.

A bum rap, his allies complained, with some justification. Not only term limits, but two other factors had eviscerated the power of any speaker: a bipartisan redistricting that had left the Assembly closely divided (43 D, 37 R), and Proposition 208, which stopped legislative leaders from transferring campaign contributions to grateful allies.

Beyond that, they protested, when Bustamante was looking outwardly indecisive, he actually was just being quietly deliberative or holding out for a better deal. This is a harder sell.

But it is true that when the speaker seemed to be hiding in his office on a crucial summer night of budget negotiations, he actually was finagling an extra $40 million in food vouchers and health care for legal immigrants--children, the elderly and migrant workers. And during the all-night legislative windup, when Bustamante seemed baffled over a tax compromise, he was preoccupied with saving Lockyer’s gambling regulation bill. Besides, it was the speaker who initially had proposed the children’s credit that became the core of the $931-million tax cut.

Moreover, it also was on his watch that this legislative session ultimately became one of the most productive in years.

If he hadn’t been so inexperienced, Bustamante told me Tuesday, “I probably would have talked more to the press and tried not to see reporters as such adversaries. I was trying to be sure-footed, rather than speaking off the cuff. I knew much more than I was giving out. And as a result, people interpreted that as my being aloof or not up on the issues.

“I didn’t go out and self-promote, not realizing there’s a need to do self-promotion in order to give one a greater presence and have people believe you’re a little more in command of the situation.”

That will change, he said.

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“I’m going to try to consolidate [power] a little more, tighten up things,” he said.

Perhaps reward and punish by changing some committee chairs? “Not wholesale--maybe a few.”

One victim, presumably, could be Rules Committee Chairman Don Perata (D-Alameda). He’s a freshman, but also a veteran pol who for months has been rumored to be feeling out support for a potential coup. Perata, however, told me he’s loyal to Bustamante--especially after the term-limits decision.

“I believe Cruz can consolidate his speakership and pull people together,” Perata said. “I’m certainly not interested in mounting any challenge. The last thing we need is some kind of caucus fight, like getting in a circle and shooting.

“I’m no threat. I’ve got both hands on the table, and there’s nothing in them.”

Indeed, nobody seems to be plotting a coup. If this is true--and everybody I’ve talked to thinks so--it refutes what had been the prevailing theory: that Bustamante could not survive without term limits because Assembly members wouldn’t want to risk his speakership lasting beyond next year.

It’s much more likely now that they won’t want to risk a “broken jaw.”