Whatever Its Fate in Court, Prop. 140 Is Doing Its Job

California voters approved Proposition 140, which limits state legislators’ terms, because they wanted to shake up the system by breaking the stranglehold of incumbents on government and politics. Regardless of how its constitutionality is resolved, one thing is clear: Proposition 140 has done at least part of its job.

The first legislative session after Assembly term limits kicked in was marked by a huge freshman class, inexperienced in the Byzantine rituals of legislating policy; it was led by a speaker, Cruz M. Bustamante (D-Fresno), only marginally more experienced. For much of the time, government by greenhorns left the Assembly in disarray. In negotiations over welfare reform and the state budget, the lower house was rolled by a wily Republican governor, Pete Wilson, and a long-serving legislative powerhouse, state Senate President Pro Tem Bill Lockyer (D-Hayward).

But the advent of term limits has also meant an increase in the number of women and minorities, particularly Latinos, serving in the Legislature--and they hold positions of real power. Proposition 140 has had the effect of restructuring legislative leadership and ending the “imperial speakership,” most recently occupied by Willie Brown, now mayor of San Francisco; it has shifted power from the Assembly to the more experienced Senate. Ironically, much of the grousing about Bustamante’s “deliberate” leadership style--or “indecisive” behavior, as some critics contend--stems from fond memories of the self-styled “ayatollah of the Legislature.”

Even if term limits are eventually overthrown in court, it is unlikely that any Assembly speaker can again amass the raw power held by Brown or Jesse M. Unruh. Current legislators have had a taste of quick, real and independent power and are not about to surrender it voluntarily. Furthermore, under Proposition 208, the campaign-finance reform initiative passed by California voters last November and now under court challenge, legislative leaders can no longer wield clout by raising large sums of money and transferring it to favored legislative candidates.

Legislating did get done this session, despite the sometimes Keystone Kops atmosphere in the Capitol. This wasn’t due simply to the skills of seasoned legislators like former-Speaker Curt Pringle (R-Garden Grove) and Lockyer. External forces pushed the Legislature into making policy decisions, too. The perking economy made a middle-class tax cut, something attractive to politicians of all stripes, much easier. Federal mandates concentrated legislators’ minds on the need to deal with welfare and immigration reform.

Although the voter anger that propelled Proposition 140 to a narrow victory seven years ago appears to have lessened, public opinion still favors limiting a politician’s tenure in office. (A Field Poll taken last May showed 65% of Californians support term limits.) Accordingly, new term-limit proposals are likely to bust out all over, particularly as California enters an election year.

Term-limit proponents have long threatened to qualify an even more draconian initiative if the current limits on officeholders are killed in court. Last week’s opinion by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals upholding a district judge’s ruling that the proposition is unconstitutional did not directly address the issue of a lifetime ban on service beyond the mandated term limits. Rather, it struck down the initiative on the ground that voters were uninformed about the ban. Which means that voters would not be prohibited from re-enacting the same restrictions if the curbs were made explicit beforehand.

Republicans, especially, are wedded to supporting term limits (and some have even vowed to run again, if they can, to do it). They are gleeful at the prospect of term limits being a “wedge issue” in state elections. Support for 140 helped Wilson narrowly defeat Democrat Dianne Feinstein, who opposed the initiative, in the ’90 gubernatorial race.

But Democratic politicians can read polls, too. They are not about to let the Republican Party own a popular issue. Legislators and candidates across the partisan spectrum are likely to embrace some version of term limits. Lawmakers will likely try to pre-empt another citizens’ initiative by introducing a flurry of proposals. There may even be an attempt to resurrect the term limit of 12 consecutive years included in Proposition 131, a wide-ranging political-reform initiative that appeared on the same ballot as 140, but was defeated.

Even by their absence, term limits could continue to play a role in shaping state politics, as other reform measures act to protect incumbents.

Proposition 198, passed by voters in March 1996, established an “open primary” in which all candidates appear on a single ballot for each race. The top vote getter from each party goes on to the general election. What will it take for a candidate to prevail in an open primary? Money, name recognition, resources and organization--in other words, the power and perks of incumbency.

Proposition 208, in addition to banning transfers of campaign money, places severe limits on campaign contributions and fund-raising periods; it also encourages candidates to adopt voluntary expenditure ceilings. What does it take to fund a campaign under these new restrictions? Unless a legislative candidate is well-known or personally wealthy, he or she needs to have--you guessed it--all the attributes of incumbency.

Should Propositions 198 and 208 withstand legal challenges, while Proposition 140 is overturned, Californians, who embraced term-limits to bring down incumbents, could find themselves the unwitting architects of an incumbent-friendly system skewed to make sitting lawmakers nearly unbeatable.

Proposition-140 proponents promised that term limits would release issues of critical importance from the maelstrom of a legislative system gone sour. But, at least until the next judicial shoe drops, term limits have become themselves part of the turbulence that continues to rock California’s politics.