Yes, it is a cold day in Sacramento and I, who have been against term limits from the day they first were enacted, am now supporting term limits in San Diego County for the Board of Supervisors. Here’s why:

The current Board–right-wing Republicans all–have served together since 1994. They have acted as if they are entitled royalty, not public servants. They have each established multi-million-dollar slush funds, which they have used to enrich and reward their supporters and ensure their reelection.

For example, They’ve used slush fund money to fund a “non-profit” organization that turned around and flew them on junkets. One of them funded a group that proceeded to hire his daughter. Another one funded his friend’s club and bought the club furniture.

Yet while they have been throwing this money around to their friends and supporters,  they have ignored the needs of our county’s working families and most vulnerable citizens.

San Diego County has some of the highest living costs in the country.  But even though the county has a budget surplus of hundreds of millions of dollars and the Supervisors have their slush fund, they have consistently refused to support programs to help poor and sick San Diegans.

There actions can best be summed up by a quote from Howard Rich, chairman of the national advocacy group U.S. Term Limits:

It seems that the longer politicians are in office, the more likely they are to rip us off for their own benefit–rewarding ythe donors who funded their campaigns and the special interests who keep them in power rather than the people they should be serving

.

While I do not generally support the concept of term limits, I can agree that–as a matter of basic fairness–either everyone should have term limits or no one should. You cannot convince me that the San Diego Supervisors are somehow better than state legislators, the governor, the president of the United States, and even the San Diego City Council, all of whom have term limits. Fair is fair.

More than 120,000 people from throughout San Diego County signed a petition supporting term limits for the Supervisors. The initiative will be on the June 2010 ballot. It is backed by a wide range of supporters, ranging from organized labor and the civil rights community to Libertarian Richard Rider and even right-wing Republican stalwart Jon Fleichman, author of the FlashReport weblog.

Every rule has an exception. And as far as term limits are concerned, this is the exception. It is time for the Royal Supervisors of San Diego County to go.