Tag Archives: Term limits

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On Building Back Democracy In California

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This is a really frustrating sign for democracy in the nation’s largest state.

Secretary of State Debra Bowen said today that nearly one million fewer people are registered to vote in the state than two years ago. In February 2005 there were 16,628,673 registered. This year’s figure is down to 15,682,358 […]

“The percentage of people who have regsitered to vote vesus the total number of people eligible to register has dropped 5 percentage points in the past two years. This means fewer people are making the critical decisions that affect the lives of 37 million Californians,” Bowen said in a statement accompanying the newest Report of Registration.

We have two parties in California that are fairly dysfunctional.  The gerrymander of 2001 means that relatively few races are contested statewide, and given how adamant Nancy Pelosi and her allies are about keeping things the same, I don’t see that changing in the near future.  When you don’t have the energy and excitement that accompany contested races, you tend to get lower participation rates, and worse, less people even interested in the civic process at all.  The recent post-partisanship and cooperation and progress between Democrats and Republicans Democrats and a Republican governor who wanted to save his job may push the needle on this in the other direction, but I doubt it.  This survey by Binder research shows the real problem with the term limits initiative, the fact that the perception of it as a power grab by elected officials will threaten its viability.

We already know that voters don’t like Schwarzenegger and the Legislature fighting. A survey by David Binder Research in January 2006 showed only 46% support for “adjusting” term limits. Now, that figure is 59% in support of modifying the law through a ballot proposition. That corresponds with a better view of the Legislature and Schwarzenegger. In 2006, 42% of voters said they approved of the job performance of the Legislature, but a year later that has jumped to 49%. Schwarzenegger himself jumped from 53% approval to 68% in the Binder survey.

But it comes with caveats. After the initial questions, the survey-takers explained some of the arguments against the initiative: It would grandfather current members and would permit some lawmakers to easily win re-election at a time when California needs “new blood.” Support for the initiative dropped to 54% of those surveyed, with 35% saying they would vote no and 11% undecided. Anything lower than that – especially without an opposition campaign started yet – would be a major danger sign for any initiative.

I think the universal pre-school initiative was well ahead of that number in a similar poll a year out.  It lost big.

The point is that voters believe that they have little direct voice in choosing their legislators; the gerrymander does it for them.  They view all of the machinations of the legislators with cynicism, expecting that they’re a bunch of people who want to keep power.  They are disconnected from the business in Sacramento by a state media that, by and large, doesn’t report on it.  And the state parties are flaccid, irrelevant to the everyday concerns of citizens and disassociated from the grassroots.

I want this to change.  The future of California as a national bellweather and the source of progressive change depends on it.  That’s why I got active in the party and became a delegate.  The California Democratic Party convention next month is the perfect opportunity to begin to reverse this troubling trend of non-participation.  It’s important to note that there are many in the political class who don’t really want more participation.  A small turnout is one that is quantifiable and easier to manage.  But it’s corrosive to the process of democracy, and ultimately I believe that when people are engaged, progressives win because we have the issues in our favor.

We desperately need the state party to adopt a 58-county strategy and compete in every borough, village and hamlet in California, letting the residents there know that they have a choice.  There’s a second gerrymander at work here beyond the chopping up of legislative districts; there’s the gerrymander created by the CDP choosing not to compete on what they consider unfriendly turf.  Jerry McNerney, Charlie Brown and others ought to have put that fiction to rest.  If we make the effort to fully fund Democratic organizations all over the state, activate core supporters everywhere, and make our case no matter what the environment or the partisan index, I have no doubt we will be successful.  In addition, by becoming a presence at the grassroots level, the CDP will bring voters back into the process again, and help increase voter participation instead of contributing to the decrease.

You can read the resolution promoting a 58-county strategy for California.  I will be at the Santa Monica Democratic Club’s executive meeting tonight asking for their endorsement.  This is absolutely vital to the future of democracy and the progressive movement.

Arnold Schwarzenegger

Tony Quinn on Term Limits

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This is pretty much exactly what I’ve been saying about the term limits measure, by the co-editor of the California Target Book:

What to do? Call a special election to be held in February 2008, ostensibly so California can have an early presidential primary, and place the term-limits measure on that ballot. Because the initiative would take effect immediately if it passed, Nuñez and Perata could file for extended terms in March, which is the deadline to compete in the regular June primary. They would certainly be renominated in their safe districts and go on to election in November.

The rollout of the initiative could not have been clumsier. Neither Nuñez nor Perata are official sponsors of the term-limits measure, and in its first version, the author, Democratic attorney Roberta Johansen, forgot to provide additional legislative years for Perata. Because Perata will have served 10 years in the Senate by the time of the 2008 election, the proposed 12-year limit had to be rewritten to give him 14 years in the body.

Another problem is that some other termed-out senators already have served their 12 years. The measure includes a special exception that would allow them to stay in office as long as 18, 20 and, in one case, 26 years.

What began as a sound public policy idea – shortening term limits from a maximum of 14 in two houses to 12 in a single chamber – has become a Cinderella farce, with legislators scheming to save themselves before the stroke of midnight. The public rejected a similar term-limits extension in 2002, so the proposed measure seems even less likely to pass the political smell test.

They torpedoed reform by making it look too much like a job-protection scheme.  This will be the prime mode of attack for opponents of this reform, and it can’t help but be effective.

Read the whole thing for the mess that will be competing redistricting reform plans on the Feb. 2008 ballot, and Schwarzenegger’s complete lack of leadership on any of these plans so the stink of them doesn’t rub off on him.  What a disaster.

Arnold Schwarzenegger

Term Limits Measure Has Special “Don Perata” Provision

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(Hmmm… Interesting. – promoted by atdleft)

I wrote this for today’s Beyond Chron, San Francisco’s Alternative Online Daily

Democratic leaders in Sacramento have proposed an initiative to expand term limits that will allow members to serve up to 12 years in either the State Senate or the State Assembly.  But after Frank Russo of the California Progress Report pointed out that it would still prevent State Senate President Don Perata from running again, lawyers at the firm of Remcho, Johansen and Purcell rushed to tweak the proposal. 

Now the initiative, as re-written, has created a loophole for the powerful East Bay Democrat – who is already the longest serving member of the State Senate, and whose political career has already been extended due to a charitable legal interpretation of existing law.  If the much-needed term limits reform is seen as a transparent move to expand Perata’s tenure, chances of passage are slim.

Chapter One: the “Run-Off Special Election” Loophole

In September 1998, Don Perata first ran for the State Senate in a special election.  Ron Dellums had retired from Congress in the middle of his term – setting off a chain-reaction of special elections that allowed Barbara Lee to vacate her Senate seat.  Perata was serving his first term in the State Assembly, as he faced off in a crowded race against Assemblywoman Dion Aroner, Alameda County Supervisor Keith Carson, and other minor candidates.  Carson and Aroner were both Berkeley progressives in the Dellums-Lee mold, whereas Perata was a moderate, pro-business Democrat from Alameda.

Predictably, Aroner and Carson split the progressive vote – allowing Perata to squeak into first place with 33% of the vote.  It was an extremely low-turnout election (15%), where even habitual voters in the politically conscious East Bay did not remember to vote. Aroner came within 900 votes of beating Perata, who took an insurmountable lead among early absentee voters. 

Under state law, if no candidate in a special election gets a simple majority, a run-off must be held.  But Section 10706(a) of the California Elections Code does not specify that the runoff must be between the top two finishers; instead, it requires a run-off between the top finishers of each political party.  Because Aroner and Carson were both Democrats, only Perata made it to the run-off – where he faced token opposition from the Republican and Peace & Freedom Party candidates.  Needless to say, Perata won that race handily. 

Legislators get ahead in Sacramento by raising gobs of money for their colleagues, and Perata’s connections to big developers helped him gather clout and influence in the State Capitol.  He also moved his home base to Oakland – where he has considerable power with local legislators and has been under investigation by the FBI for corruption charges.  After the 2000 Census, Perata helped re-draw the district boundaries – carving for himself a new Senate district that was less progressive.  He took out El Cerrito, and put in Dublin and Livermore.

Chapter Two: the “Technically-Didn’t-Serve-Two-Terms” Loophole

As Perata planned to run for re-election in 2004, it was an open question if he would be disqualified from running because of term limits.  The current law limits State Senators to serving only two terms – Perata had been first elected in the 1998 special election, and then re-elected in 2000. 

For purposes of the term-limits law, a Senator is considered to have served a “term” if they served more than half of a regular four-year term.  Perata did not take office until December 1998 – just barely after the halfway mark of Barbara Lee’s unexpired term (1996-2000.)  But after he won a plurality of the vote in the September 1998 election against Aroner and Carson, everyone knew that he was the de-facto State Senator.

In 2003, Perata got an opinion from Attorney General Bill Lockyer (a long-time Perata friend) who declared that because he did not take office until December 1998, he had not served two “terms” and was thus eligible to run again in 2004.  Assemblywoman Wilma Chan tried to challenge this, and even got a separate legal opinion that made the opposite conclusion.  But Chan threw the towel in when she realized her challenge wasn’t going anywhere, and Perata was allowed to run and serve for another four years.

Perata then got elected President of the State Senate.  The legendary John Burton, who had served as Senate President for years and was an institutional powerhouse, was retiring – and Perata ran to replace him against Sheila Kuehl (a Santa Monica progressive) and Martha Escutia of Los Angeles.  Perata’s competitors would be termed out in 2006, which was a factor why the Democratic caucus elected Perata.

Chapter Three: the “Let Don Perata Run Again” Loophole

Now Democrats in the state legislature want to reform the term limits law, and will place the measure on the February 2008 ballot.  Rather than limit Assembly members to six years (three two-year terms) and Senators to eight years (two four-year terms), the proposal would allow legislators to serve up to 12 years in one house or the other.  Under this plan, legislators could build leadership skills in one house, develop institutional memory, and slow down the constant pressure to run for higher office. 

Ironically, absent Lockyer’s ruling, the proposed initiative would have allowed Perata – like other State Senators — to serve an additional four years.  But now, he will have served in the State Senate for ten years by 2008.  Because the measure limits service in either house to 12 years, Perata would be ineligible to run for another term.

So on February 16th, the initiative drafters filed an Amended Version of the Term Limits Measure that deleted some of the language clarifying that a legislator can only serve a maximum of 12 years.  It also added that if a legislator served less than half of a full term (i.e., Don Perata’s service from 1998-2000), that time would not be counted towards the 12-year cutoff.  In other words, the amendments were designed so that Don Perata could serve as State Senate President until 2012.

There is no question that our term limits law is a mess.  Legislators do not spend time on issues that matter because they are under constant pressure to run for higher office before their time runs out.  More power lies in the lobbyists who have the institutional memory, and the Governor who knows that the legislative leadership that he’s negotiating with this year won’t be around soon.

But if voters view this as a referendum on Don Perata, it could kill the momentum to reform term limits.  The best chance for term limits reform is to not have the change identified with any politician. 

EDITOR’S NOTE: Paul Hogarth was a volunteer on Dion Aroner’s State Senate campaign against Don Perata in the 1998 special election.  Send feedback to [email protected] 

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Nuñez Should Be Primaried

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Let me first say that I am generally a supporter of relaxing restrictive term limits, in the larger context of reforming elections generally so that the people get to decide when their legislator’s time is up.  But take a look at the condescension dripping from this statement from the Assembly Speaker:

Riding high from a session last year that many praised as the Legislature’s most productive in years, and without an obvious landing pad when he is termed out next year, Nuñez has increasingly said in recent months that he thinks that voters will be open to adjusting term limits.

“You can’t do the job effectively if you can’t be there for a reasonable amount of time, to have a real grasp on the issues,” he told a group of newspaper publishers last month. ” … It takes a couple of years to develop the level of expertise and know-how to negotiate a balanced budget.”

To me, that reads as “I own this seat, and I deserve to be here as long as I possibly can.”

Edit by Brian to move some stuff over the flip…so flip it!

There are these things called primary elections, and the people (in a perfect world, anyway) are supposed to judge the qualifications of each candidate and make their own choice.  You can run on experience, but you’re not entitled to your position because of it.  And you certainly should not be able to change the rules mid-stream and subvert the prior will of the voters in a power grab to keep the Speaker’s gavel:

The proposed initiative would extend the terms of sitting lawmakers by allowing them to remain in place until they have served 12 years in their current house. Some could end up serving as many as 20 years in the Legislature before having to leave.

People already termed out of the Assembly or Senate could not run for those houses again. Former lawmakers’ years of service would count toward the 12-year cap if they returned to the Capitol.

How clever.  So those who used to be in government and see this as an opportunity to return get the door slammed in their face, but Nuñez gets to extend himself for six more years.  It’s like a sentencing law that only applies to people who have already committed the crime instead of those who are in the process of committing it.

We all know that this was the real reason for the move of the Presidential primary to February.  Nuñez wants to run again in 2008, so he crafted a law that will enable him to do so.  He also has over $7 million in the bank for any possible campaigns, $4 million of it from AT&T laundered through the California Democratic Party for services rendered.

At least Don Perata, who also stands to gain from the change in the law (although according to Frank Russo he may have to get the law rewritten to benefit), is a little more discreet about it, and he says the right things:

After he learned of the proposed initiative Thursday from Nuñez, Perata issued a statement that any modification should be tied to a discussion of how to make government more open and accountable.

“It’s not just about how long we serve,” Perata said, “but how well we serve.”

But Nuñez is so lustful of power that he doesn’t mind the appearance of impropriety.  If he is serious about relaxing term limits in the pursuit of more enlightened public officials, he would sign a pledge vowing not to run again and benefit from the law he is shepherding.  Nunez could run for state Senate and serve 8 years if he wanted to stay in public office.  He could bring his experience in Sacramento to bear in the other chamber.  But he’s just got to have that gavel in his hand.  It’s the only way to enrich his campaign coffers, I guess.

If he refuses to sign such a pledge, and insists on using the state initiative process as a personal power grab, then someone in the 46th Assembly District ought to challenge him for that seat.  And there would be exactly two issues in that campaign: this initiative, and the $4 million handoff from AT&T.  And while Nuñez has a nice record in other areas and a great deal of powerful friends and influence in his district, I suspect those two issues would be very persuasive.

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Term Limits Initiative Filed

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You think this is the real reason why we are going to have 2 primary elections next year? Nah, couldn’t be.  Well, as juls noted in the Quick Hits section, Gale Kauffman and Matthew Dowd (a moneyed consultant dream team) are announcing that they have filed an initiative to extend the term limits.  Well, not really extend, so much as modify.  It changes the deal to 12 years in either house.

Oh, and just in case you were worried about our incumbents, they get a grandfather exemption to allow them an extra four years even if they’ve already served twelve.  Pretty sweet, huh?

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Feb. Primary Will Happen: Time to Put Pressure on REAL Election Reform

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It’s increasingly apparent that the 2008 California Presidential primary will be moved to February 5.  The Senate bill moved through the appropriate committee today unanimously, and the Assembly will move their version as well, which the Governor has indicated he will sign.

This bill says nothing about possible initiatives on redistricting or term limit relaxation that are rumored to be tied to the primary shift.  But Fabian Nuñez, who under current law will be termed out in 2008, doesn’t have $7.1 million in his campaign account for no reason.  Last week he put forward a redistricting plan that was short on details.  And Senate President Pro Tem Perata appeared cool on the idea, at least publicly.  But it’s clear that somebody is gearing up for something.

I would offer that if you REALLY wanted to change how we choose a President and how California can impact that, if you actually wanted to see candidates in this state both before and after Feb. 5, 2008, there are far more effective ways to do so beyond moving up a primary to the very moment when the nominee will have already been all but selected.  Therefore I challenge everyone who supports this plan to also advocate full support for the National Popular Vote.

The real travesty with California’s role in the Presidential process is not in the primary election, but in the general.  By virtue of the antiquated electoral college system, a Californian’s vote is about 3.6 times less valuable than a vote from a resident of the state of Wyoming.  We’ve seen over the past two close elections that states like California are completely taken for granted in the general election, with all the money and all the focus going to a select few swing states.  This state with the most voters really does have practically no effect on who gets elected.

The National Popular Vote would change all that.  Under this legislation, every state pledges to deliver its slate of electoral votes to the candidate who wins the popular vote.  It would not kick in until states with a majority of electoral votes make it law, therefore essentially doing an end run around the electoral college.  It is completely constitutional (apportionment of electors has always been left up to the states; Nebraska and Maine give them out be electoral district) and would mean that the winner of the popular vote could never be denied the Presidency.

The practical effect of this would be that Presidential hopefuls would not be able to concentrate their campaigns in one or two states.  It would open up the playing field entirely, and we would see a number of new and innovative strategies to round up votes.  Nobody’s vote could be taken for granted, and therefore political participation nationwide would be widespread.  Some think that candidates would just park themselves in major urban centers.  They pretty much park themselves in a handful of states right now, so I don’t see that as a fair or even coherent criticism.

46 states have introduced bills for the National Popular Vote.  It has passed the Colorado State Senate, and has cleared committee in Montana and Hawaii with bipartisan backing.  Last year both houses of the legislature in California passed the National Popular Vote bill, which was managed by then-State Senator Debra Bowen and then-Assemblyman Tom Umberg.  But it was vetoed by Governor Schwarzenegger last September 30.  It was vetoed because there was no public groundswell of support and no penalty for the Governor to veto the bill.

This is what baffles me about petitions and such for the date of the California Primary.  Here is a common-sense solution that would make California count and literally change the way the Preisdent gets elected, making the system more fair and just.  Why aren’t the champions of reform (and, ahem, courage) pushing this bill?  The LA Times and the Sacramento Bee editorialized in favor of this reform last year.  Where is the grassroots and the netroots?

In fact, Carole Midgen is sponsoring SB 37, the National Popular Vote bill, in the 2007 session.  I would love to see these people who are so wounded by California’s lack of entry in the Presidential process to get behind this bill.

Arnold Schwarzenegger

Third Term, Anyone?

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Dan Walters makes a hell of a lot of sense about the real reason why the Governor is pushing this plan to move up the California primary.  He seems to think it has nothing to do with the primary itself, but about the other proposal being tossed about for that February 2008 ballot.

Schwarzenegger could legally seek a third term only if the term limits were to be modified, and lo and behold, he and legislators are talking about doing exactly that. While the public discussion of changing term limits has centered on legislators, there’s no particular reason why loosening the limits on constitutional officers couldn’t be part of any deal.

I think that Arnold’s outsized ego just makes him want to be in the thick of the Presidential race, but this is an absolute side effect.  You can bet that if the term limits change for the legislators, they’ll similarly change for the constitutional officers, and we won’t get the opportunity to pick one but not the other.  It’ll all get tied up in one big redistricting/term limit ball. 

Plus, this would give Republicans in the Congress until 2014 to amend the Constitution to allow foreign-born citizens to ascend to the Oval Office.  And I don’t see Arnold wanting to be anywhere else but the Governor’s mansion or the White House.

Walters ends the piece by calling this idea “possible but not probable,” but I think he convinced me that it’s actually likely.  Are you all ready for 8 more years of math-challenged budgets and more attempts to break up unions and universal health care plans that aren’t universal or even health care?

Well, enjoy getting to see part of Barack Obama’s head at some rally in late January!  That seems like a fair trade-off!

California

Schedule of California’s 2008 Presidiential Primaries

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As Sacramento debates a winter season for California’s 2008 presidential primaries, one important consideration is that this race will be wide-open to a historical level.

When one party has an assumed nominee, it tends to influence the selection process of the other party. But this year neither party will have an incumbent president or vice president as nominee, freeing both parties to look focus on a vision for the future instead of worrying what the other side has coming.

The last time this happened was in 1952, but even then Harry Truman was a candidate until after he lost New Hampshire. In 1924, both nominations were wide open, but with Democrats not bothering to contest the race it didn’t really matter. You really need to go back to 1920 to find a presidential race that was as wide-open at this point in the campaign.

To put that in perspective, while the internet will be the key medium in 2008, the last time we faced a campaign like this was during the first race with radio broadcasting results on election night.

Back then, both parties still had multiple candidates at the convention, but the historic nature of 2008 suggests California activists take measures now to ensure that the east-coast media hasn’t anointed a nominee before we get our say in the matter.

Unfortunately, the current debate over the calendar has been shackled with the completely separate issues of term limits and redistricting. Scheduling the primary shouldn’t be burdened with the taint of incumbent protection, especially with many people already suggesting that this is a scheme to front-load the primaries with an expensive state to protect the early fundraising leader.

The question should stand on it’s own:  should California schedule an early primary to leverage our power in deciding 2008 nominees?

I think the answer is yes. I know I want to have a say and I don’t think I’m alone.

Arnold Schwarzenegger, Blog Roundup, California, Health Care

California Blog Roundup for August 16, 2006

Today’s California Blog Roundup is on the flip. Teasers: Phil Angelides, Arnold Schwarzenegger, CA-11, CA-04, John Doolittle, Richard Pombo, Republican corruption, Proposition 87, Proposition 89, redistricting, term limits, health care.

Governor’s Race

Jerry McNerney / Paid-For Pombo / CA-11

Charlie Brown / 15% Doolittle / CA-04

Other Republican Paragons

Health Care

Propositions

Goo-Goo Stuff

  • OK, here’s the deal. Redistricting lives for now, but won’t be combined with term limit reform.

  • The Mad Professah on the 2001 redistricting deal and reforming it. Have a read, but remind yourself that anything involving spending requires a 2/3 majority, so a gerrymander into a simple majority is nice, but not ideal.

  • Cathy Feng from Common Cause on redistricting. If people want to redistrict the state in some nonpartisan way, that’s fine (subject to endless caveats about the way it’s done), but for California to redistrict Congressional districts that way when Texas doesn’t is just stupid unilateral disarmament.

  • Oh, and term limits? Basically useless for anything except putting control of government in the hands of staff and lobbyists.

The Rest

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Term limits & Redistricting won’t be linked

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Well, it looks like redistricting and term limits will be separate.  It also puts Sen. Lowenthal’s SCA 3 Redistricting measure in a precarious position as he’ll have  a devil of a time sweetening the pot for legislators.  See the extended for more.

California lawmakers abandoned efforts Tuesday to link an overhaul of the state’s system for drawing political districts with revamping legislative term limits.

Democratic and Republican legislative leaders jointly announced that they have canceled a conference committee formed last week in hopes of reaching a bipartisan consensus on both issues.
{snip}
Canceling the conference committee left in doubt whether a pending redistricting measure, Senate Constitutional Amendment 3, would be squashed before reaching the Senate floor. … Lowenthal, who faces substantial opposition to SCA 3 within his own Democratic caucus, said he was counting votes late Tuesday but tentatively planned to seek a vote today.

“There are some Democrats who will never support this,” Lowenthal said. “And there are some Republicans who will never support this. But I’m still hoping there are enough who will come together (and pass it).” (SacBee 8/16/06)

The thing about this redistricting measure is that it would likely yield 1-2 seats in Congress, likely Latino majority districts.  Reps. Waxman and Berman would likely be in the most precarious positions for the Dems, however it would threaten some of the subarban LA and OC Republican Reps more.  There is a possibility that they might be able to hold onto the seats for a few years until they retire, but the new seats would be Latino opportunity districts.  In fact, Prop 77 would have likely had the same effect.  However, we don’t need mid-decade redistricting scandals like Tom Delay likes.

Good luck to Sen. Lowenthal…he’ll need it.