EDITORIAL PERK ATTACK OPPONENTS OF STATE TERM-LIMIT CHANGE HIT POLS WHERE IT HURTS.

THE opponents of state legislators' sneaky ballot initiative to loosen up term limits have come up with a novel way to attack lawmakers -- through their perks.

A coalition led by U.S. Term Limits, a Washington, D.C.-based group, is pushing two ballot measures of its own. One measure would cut legislators' $162 tax-free per-diem allowances -- a handsome benefit that in 2005 added about $30,000 to their $113,098 annual salaries. The other would prohibit the pols from accepting junkets and gifts from lobbyists.

Talk about hitting them where they live.

The state-issued cars, lobbyist soirees and per-diem pay are part of what makes legislators so determined to keep their jobs that they have resorted to a misleading campaign.

As term-limit scams go, this one isn't as egregious as Measure R, the deceptive term-expansion initiative by the Los Angeles City Council that passed last year. But there are definitely some stinky similarities.

Like council members, legislators found friendly organizations to front the bill and then urged state Attorney General Jerry Brown to put misleading language on the ballot to confuse voters into thinking it will cut their total years in Sacramento from 14 -- eight in the Senate plus six in the Assembly -- to 12 total.

But since there are half as many seats in the Senate as in the Assembly, it means that not all termed-out Assembly members can move on to the Senate. Indeed, this is likely to mean politicians will have a better chance of staying longer in Sacramento by staying put in either the Assembly or the Senate for 12 years. And to make sure the initiative is passed in time to help current politicians, legislators pushed an additional (and costly) election on the state in February 2008 under the guise of getting the state a better voice in the presidential primaries.

This perk attack will certainly be fought by the politicians, and it might not stop legislators from railroading the public on the term-limit measure. But at least it will expose that the real motivation of the Sacramento pols is not serving the public.