State Legislatures Magazine: February 1999

Editor's Note: These articles appeared in the February 1999 issue of NCSL's magazine, State Legislatures. To order copies or to subscribe, contact the marketing department at (303) 830-2054.

No More Museum Pieces

Tough on Leadership
More Women, Latinos
Local Lobbyists Licking Their Chops
Special Interest Worries
Sense of Urgency

No More Museum Pieces

The California Legislature is a whole new place since term limits have swept it clean.

By Mark Katches

They are all gone now.

California’s eight-year-old term limit law has finally taken hold, dramatically changing the complexion of the Legislature and sending into retirement some of its most colorful politicians.

Last November, the voters finished the work they started in November 1990 when they approved Proposition 140, which limited state senators to two four-year terms and Assembly members to three two-year terms.

The 80-member Assembly completely turned over two years ago. The latest election swept away 11 senators with a combined 262 years of legislative experience, completing the makeover of the 40-member Senate.

Ralph Dills, the 88-year-old former big band saxophone player who won his first election when Franklin Delano Roosevelt was in the White House, headed the list of senior lawmakers whose terms expired. Others out of a job include former Senate Minority Leader Ken Maddy, a Fresno Republican with 28 years of lawmaking experience, and Leroy Greene, a 36-year veteran and an early proponent of class-size reduction.

Younger lawmakers moved on: Bill Lockyer to become attorney general, and Mike Thompson headed to Congress.

TOUGH ON LEADERSHIP
When the new Legislature was sworn in on Dec. 7, San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown sat behind the rostrum and looked out over the ornate chambers. As new members arrived, most had no idea where to go, where to sit or what to do. Returning members scurried to help the freshmen.

Brown watched the chaotic mess from the same vantage point where he presided with an iron fist over the room for nearly 15 years.

For many term limit proponents, Brown was the lightning rod that prompted them to write the initiative. If it weren’t for term limits, Brown has said repeatedly he would have been buried at the speaker’s rostrum. He never intended to leave willingly.

Things have most definitely changed since Brown’s last year in office in 1995.

The Assembly has elected six different speakers none of whom has lasted more than 13 months. Although current Speaker Antonio Villaraigosa probably is in the most secure position of any speaker since Brown, he has just 10 months of experience behind him and can expect to serve just one more year before a new transition begins. Villaraigosa’s term in the Assembly ends in the year 2000, and he’ll most likely step down in 1999 to start running for his next political job, probably mayor of Los Angeles. A wildly successful speaker can expect to hold the job for two years, three at the most. That hardly leaves the time to build the kind of loyalties in the caucus and raise the vast war chests that were common in the Brown years. It also leaves precious little room for missteps. One wrong move and a hungry group of subordinates, their own clocks ticking, will look to take you out.

It used to take four years for most members to move into even junior leadership posts like whip or vice chairmanship. But Villaraigosa and his predecessor Cruz Bustamante each had spent just three years in the Legislature when they were elected speaker.

MORE WOMEN, LATINOS
Term limits have brought a younger and more diverse group of lawmakers to the Capitol.

There are now more women and Latinos than ever before. Women make up 25 percent of the Legislature, up from 17.5 percent in 1990. Latino representation has risen to 19 percent, up from 6 percent. Latinos now hold both party leader posts in the Assembly.

Naturally, there is more turnover. Forty freshmen lawmakers took their seats in December—one-third of the Legislature. Back in 1990, only 14 new members arrived on the scene.

The average level of legislative experience has been cut in half—from 10 to five years. Lawmakers with just two years service are chairing powerful policy committees, like Senate Judiciary, Assembly Public Safety and Assembly Human Services.

"We’ve broken the careerist grip on the legislative process and brought new people and new ideas to Sacramento," said Lewis Uhler, a co-author of the state’s term limits law. "All we said in 1990 was that we were opening up opportunities for more people, and that’s what happened."

The changes are most evident in the Senate, which had always been a sort of exclusive club. Back in 1990, the Senate was made up mostly of white male incumbents, some of whom had been around so long they were almost as old as the Capitol museum pieces.

Now, there are twice as many women and more than twice as many Hispanics compared to 1990. The average age has dropped from 59 to 52.

The Assembly has continued to evolve in the last two years. Nearly half of the lower house comes from local government backgrounds. Most cities and counties in California don’t have term limits, but the law in the Legislature has opened the door for city council members and county supervisors who have a leg up on unknown challengers in running for open seats.

"Local officials now have a built-in advantage when these seats open up," said Claremont College political scientist Sherry Bebitch Jeffe. "The advantage goes to the candidate with an organization, name recognition, the money or the ability to raise it."

Overall, the number of former city council members and county supervisors in Sacramento has shot up 35 percent—a fact that local government advocates say could boost the fortunes of cities and counties.

LOCAL LOBBYISTS LICKING THEIR CHOPS

And local government lobbyists are licking their chops. They believe they now have the chance to change what they call years of state neglect on everything from basic services such as police and fire spending to philosophical issues such as state vs. local control.

After years of failed efforts, they are expecting a strong push this year to return some of the $3.4 billion in local property tax revenue the state seized from cities and counties during the recession.

"Getting that money back to local governments is long overdue," said Assemblyman Dean Florez, a Central Valley freshman. "I think there will be some movement this year."

But term limit opponents wonder whether this new inexperienced Legislature will be able to handle the complex issues facing the state.

"You have a bunch of people who have no idea how to move a bill through the Legislature," said Democratic political consultant Gale Kaufman, a former Assembly staff aide. "When people notice that they can’t get a budget on time, they have to realize that most of these people have never dealt with a budget this size in their life."

That’s especially true in the Assembly, where 27 freshmen have been sworn in. But the Senate, while younger and less experienced, remains more battle tested. While more Assembly members are cutting their teeth politically in city and county offices, 34 of the state’s 40 senators have served in the lower house.

More than ever before, the Assembly is turning into a breeding ground for the Senate. The overall lack of experience is less glaring in the upper house. More than one-fourth of the new state Senate has bailed out of the Assembly early to head for the upper house where the terms are longer.

A good example is Democrat Deborah Ortiz, a former Sacramento city councilwoman. Two years ago, she was elected to her first term in the Assembly. When term limits finished the career of 36-year veteran Leroy Greene, she jumped in to fill the void in the Senate rather than spend four more years in the lower house.

Other freshmen senators like Kevin Murray and Chuck Poochigian also left the Assembly despite having more service time available.

"What we clearly see here is that when a Senate seat becomes available, you have people who feel they absolutely have to move on it," said Assemblywoman Marilyn Brewer. Brewer has no plans to run for the Senate right now, but she is caught in the middle of a fight between two Orange County lawmakers who are both seeking an open seat in the year 2000. Brewer has already endorsed Assemblyman Dick Ackerman for the 33rd Senate District.

But now, Assemblyman Bill Campbell is considering running for the seat as well after he had told Ackerman he wouldn’t run against him. Ackerman will need a job in the year 2000. Campbell, on the other hand, still has another term of eligibility remaining. But if he doesn’t run for the Senate now, he would have to wait until 2008 before the seat opens up again.

SPECIAL INTEREST WORRIES
Still, term limit foes worry that more power will fall into the hands of lobbyists, bureaucrats and senior staff who have the institutional memory to manipulate fresh-faced lawmakers more easily.

"You need people with the strength to say no," said former Senate Leader Dave Roberti, one of the earliest victims of term limits. "And right now we don’t have that. Proponents talk about all the diversity this has created, but what you don’t have is the experience mixed in with the young blood. That doesn’t create diversity either."

Some of the beneficiaries of term limits are less concerned.

San Fernando Valley Senator Adam Schiff never held an elected office until he won a Senate seat two years ago. Already, he is chairman of the powerful Senate Judiciary Committee. A Democrat, Schiff has an impressive track record. Roughly 40 of his 60 bills were signed by Republican Governor Pete Wilson.

One bill, which boosted the pension plan for teachers, failed in previous years, but Schiff worked tirelessly to get it through the Legislature.

"If I had been a 20-year veteran of the Senate and a retired teacher brought me this problem, I would have thought that’s a lost cause. I don’t want to waste my time on a dead loser," Schiff said. "Now I’ve got letters in my office from retired teachers saying that because of this bill, they can get the prescription glasses they need or they can get a hearing aid replaced."

First-term senators like Schiff also are taking over influential policy committees. In the old era, lawmakers sometimes had to wait a decade for a chance like that.

Before she had served a day in the Senate, Martha Escutia, a former assemblywoman elected to the Senate in November, was named to run the Senate Health and Human Services Committee, taking over from departed Senator Diane Watson, who ran the committee for most of her 20 years in the upper house.

"The learning curve has to be shortened dramatically," said Joe Dunn, a freshman senator from Orange County. "It puts a burden on the newcomers to get up to speed and learn the issues much sooner than otherwise would have been expected."

SENSE OF URGENCY
Jim Brulte, who spent six years in the Assembly before moving to the Senate in 1996, said term limits have brought a sense of urgency to the Capitol. If lawmakers want to develop a legacy, they have to get to work right away.

He believes that’s what prompted lawmakers to reform workers compensation, overhaul the welfare system and slash personal income and corporate taxes. The state’s onerous vehicle license fee also was cut.

"I would challenge anyone to find a corresponding period in California history where the Legislature did as much to fundamentally improve the lives of Californians," Brulte said. "You have average members of the Legislature insisting on results."

But Roberti said the jury is still out. He believes the last few years of legislative productivity has been more a function of a state treasury that has been bursting at the seams.

"The test of any governmental body and legislature is when times are bad, not when you’re rolling in dough," Roberti said.

Already about a dozen ideas have been floated to tinker with the term limits law. Some proposals would allow lawmakers to sit out a term and then run again.

Others would lengthen the terms of Assembly members. An effort led by outgoing senators to place a new ballot measure before the voters in the year 2000 failed in the waning days of the last legislative session.

Assemblyman Lou Papan wasted no time submitting his version of a new term limits law. On the first day of the new legislative session, Papan introduced Assembly Constitutional Amendment 2. The measure, which would go before the voters in the year 2000, would lengthen the terms of senators to six years and assembly members to four years.

And more efforts to refine the law are expected this year. Term limit author Uhler said it’s too early to mess with the will of the voters—although he acknowledges that changes may be necessary down the road.

"Nothing from the hand of man is perfect," Uhler said. "Over the next five to 10 years, we’ll have a better ability to know what changes, if any, need to be made. But not now. Not at the time when all of the old members have finally moved out."

Mark Katches is a Capitol correspondent for the Orange County Register.

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