(Sorry to interrupt the anti-Blackwater high. This article was written by Frank Russo, and originally appeared at California Progress Report. Disclosure: I do some work for Prop 93. Frank does not. – promoted by Brian Leubitz)
I was taught in law school to treat with suspicion and closely examine any sentence that starts off with the phrase, “It is clear that…” and assertions made without evidence. We know from history that big lies are repeated often enough that they are accepted for the truth.
Every time this year that it appears that the legislature has gotten close to a deal on health care or water or actually made progress on some pressing issue Californians care about, there is an eruption of bald faced statements that “They’re just doing that because of term limits” from the nattering nabobs of negativism.
As we are getting close to the end of this year, I’ve asked a dozen or more observers of the Sacramento scene, what would have been different this year had a proposition to change term limits not been placed on the ballot. The folks I’ve talked to include many who are cynical about the political process–yet none of them have been able to come up with a good answer.
I submit to you that we would have had the same dynamic and the same results had term limits not been on the ballot. The Governor would have had the same insistence on a health plan that’s never had a single legislator supporting it or willing to introduce it. He would have the same position on SB 840–the single payer bill the legislature passed in 2006 and would have vetoed it, as he did to AB 8, the health bill that passed this year. He would have the same position on water and we would be at loggerheads over what to do. We would have had the same budget stalemate. The same bills would have passed and the same bills would have floundered.
The chattering started with the introduction of the bill to move the presidential primary from June to February 5. Taken a look at the political calendar for 2008 lately? It would have been pretty lonely having our contest in June. Did all those other states move their primaries because of term limits too? Would we have moved our primary up had the sugar plums of term limit changes not been in the heads of our legislators? Or would we have left it in June when it would have been like a beached whale without meaning? In past elections cycles, California has moved our presidential primary up to an earlier date. Why did we do it then?
Last year–2006–the legislature adopted an on time budget. When there was a move to try to get a budget on time this year, the tongues of some started wagging about the Democrats in the legislature–“They’re going to cave to the Republicans and sell us out, just to get a budget because of term limits.” We all know what happened.
One denizen of the Capitol surmised there may have been one consequence of term limits being on the ballot. With all this talk about Democrats single-minded about term limits, it may have hardened Senate Republicans into thinking they had a good hand to play and led to the crazy hold up of the budget by the gang of 15 figuring the Democrats would jettison Attorney General Jerry Brown’s ability to enforce California’s environmental laws to appease them and look good for those February voters. But in the next breath he said, there’s no proof of that either.
There may yet be a deal on health and water. But it seems to me that if term limits were uppermost in the motivations of our lawmakers that these would have been sealed in the regular session and certainly earlier than the holiday season. It’s a little late for these to have a major impact on the term limits proposition–with most of the fundraising, support and opposition of organizations, and the like already set. The budget would have been passed in June–before they were dragged through the mud, too.
On the contrary, in milieu of money politics and despite the siren song of Proposition 93, the Democrats have held to the course they would have taken in its absence. The California Correctional Peace Officers, the state’s prison guards were an early contributor to the yes side on term limits changes, but have publicly stated that they have shifted to the no side which they are heavily funding precisely because the legislature in the final hours of the regular session did not pass a stealth bill to deal with contractual problems they have had with the Schwarzenegger Administration.
Do politicians want to win? Sure they do. They want to be popular with the voters. They want to be loved–and appreciated. That was the same in 2006, an election year when they passed global warming legislation, an increase in the minimum wage, and other significant legislation. They’re trying to do the same on very difficult and complex issues–health and water–that have bedeviled many prior legislative bodies here and in other states. Seems to me that their detractors want to have it both ways–if they are successful to dismiss it as improperly motivated–and if they fail to deride them as well for not accomplishing in those areas. Heads I win, tails you lose.
I am voting for Prop 93, not because of its effects on the current crop of legislators, but because of my philosophical beliefs that voters should be able to elect and re-elect those they wish and that those in other districts shouldn’t be able to limit my choice if I am satisfied with my state Senator and Assemblymember. Also, because I’d like to see more experienced legislators based on my observations before and after term limits went into effect. We have one of the most restrictive term limits laws in the nation. I’d like to see legislators with some serving up to 12 years in their house so there will be a longer vision about California.
Those are the public policy reasons I’m basing my vote on, not the mud that is being thrown by those who make allegations without evidence.
