Let these limits follow Brown to retirement

Willie Brown has been gone from the Legislature for almost 12 years and he isn’t coming back. So maybe some voters out there will realize it’s now safe to ease up on term limits.

Booting Brown was many voters’ main motivation for passing Proposition 140 by a narrow 4.3% margin back in 1990.

The conservative-backed initiative -- also propelled by an FBI sting that generated corruption convictions for a dozen lobbyists, staffers and legislators -- limited lawmakers to three two-year terms in the Assembly and two four-year stints in the Senate. A total of 14 years.

Democrat Brown -- who showed everybody by subsequently getting elected to two terms as San Francisco’s mayor -- acknowledges being “the poster boy” for term limits.

Why was he the poster boy? As long as he remained the Assembly speaker, Brown told me last week, “Republicans concluded they never again could control the Legislature.”

“Brilliant” and “Brown” were two words used together in those days. Willie was a skillful leader, tactician and orator -- the self-dubbed “Ayatollah of the Assembly.”

Brown rankled many Republicans, but few who knew him personally. He was the Democrat GOP voters loved to hate. Ironically, he was elected speaker because Republican lawmakers backed him. He later cut lots of deals with two GOP governors -- George Deukmejian and Pete Wilson -- while keeping Democrats in control of the Assembly and himself as speaker for a record 14 1/2 years.

He outfoxed Republicans every other November until 1994. Then a national GOP sweep -- coupled with the flight of some Assembly Democrats to other political jobs as their term limits neared -- gave Republicans brief control of the Assembly. Facing his own approaching term limit, Brown soon went home to become mayor.

I’ve always felt there also was another reason why Brown became the term limits poster boy: a smidgen of racism. He was not humble and subdued. This African American was flamboyant, wore stylish suits, drove fancy cars -- and could be blatantly partisan.

The controversial speaker also was a gifted showman with an upbeat sense of humor. He enjoyed offering legislative allies the choice of his either endorsing them or their campaign opponent, whichever would help the most.

Now 72 and making big money as a government affairs consultant, Brown still opposes term limits and continues to blame former Senate leader David Roberti, a Democrat from Van Nuys, for their passage. Roberti, currently an L.A. lawyer, was supposed to mail voters a letter from former President Reagan opposing term limits. The potentially persuasive message never made it to the post office.

“Roberti failed to produce and he was the first victim of term limits,” Brown says. “That’s poetic justice.”

Brown laughed when told of the tension between today’s Assembly and Senate leaders after last week’s rollout of a proposed ballot initiative to make term limits more flexible.

The initiative instigator was Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez (D-Los Angeles), who could extend his leadership tenure if voters approve the measure. Believing the electorate is more likely to accept a term limits proposal that originates from outside the Legislature than from within, Nunez’s political consultant, Gale Kaufman, announced an effort to qualify the initiative by collecting 1.1 million signatures. The theory, apparently, is that voters won’t realize that it’s still coming from Nunez.

Anyway, the speaker launched the campaign without clearing the initiative with Senate leader Don Perata (D-Oakland). Perata wants to load up any ballot measure with “sweetener” lobbying reforms. Nunez thinks the electorate would see through that and cynically reject the proposal -- unlike in L.A. last November when voters approved Proposition R, a City Council term limits extension tactically tucked inside some lobbying reform that got all the campaign emphasis.

So there’s serious strain between the Legislature’s two Democratic leaders over strategy and, some say, whose campaign consultants will be used and prosper.

“They ought to cool their jets,” Brown said of Perata and any legislative grumblers.

“They may express disdain and disgust at the moment, but their self-interest will force them to fall in line. There’s a strong desire to stay in public office.... There’s only one cure for that desire. And that’s holding public office.”

Why? “I don’t know,” Brown continued, chuckling. “But we really love it. Talk about people going to rehab! You miss the exercise of power. We won’t admit it, but that’s addictive.”

Somebody’s got to hold the power. And I’d rather it be people with knowledge and experience in public policy and deal-making.

The initiative would reduce the total years a legislator could serve from 14 to 12, but allow them all to be spent in one house. It’s more complex and generous for current members. They could spend a total of 12 years in their present house, even if they’d already served in the other. Perata would get an extra term.

The goal is stability and continuity, allowing leaders and committee heads to learn on the job and stay there for a while. They’d spend much more time on oversight of government agencies and planning the state’s future -- and a lot less plotting their next political career move.

It’s badly needed, but has no chance of voter approval without bipartisan backing. That means Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Republicans must support it. And to gain that, Democrats need to deliver on long-promised redistricting reform.

Meanwhile, some free advice for campaign strategists: Get Brown to come out against the initiative.

He could say: “Don’t mess with these term limits. Look what they did for me! Without them, I wouldn’t have become mayor of a great California city.”

George Skelton writes Monday and Thursday. Reach him at george.skelton@latimes.com.