EDITORIAL TERMED OUT JUDGE REJECTS CITY COUNCIL'S OUTRAGEOUS SCHEME.

FROM the very beginning, it was clear that the Los Angeles City Council's plan to extend its members' terms in office was cynical and self-serving. Now a Superior Court judge has made it official.

On Thursday, Judge Robert O'Brien ruled that Measure R -- the council's assault on term limits and the public's trust -- is unconstitutional. Barring appeal, the measure is now dead, and won't be sullying the November ballot.

The council should count its blessings.

Had Measure R gone before the public, it would have gone down in flames, thus delivering the council a humiliating rebuke. But now, because the measure won't be on the ballot, the city's politicians can keep nurturing their fantasy that voters want to keep them around forever.

That's not to say the council shouldn't still be embarrassed. Although not as humiliating as a voter rejection, this judicial slap in the face still must sting.

After all, Judge O'Brien's ruling only confirms what City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo already had said: Measure R is unconstitutional because it tried to make weakening term limits palatable by packaging it with so-called ethics reforms. The California Constitution prevents politicians from engaging in that kind of manipulation by requiring that the various provisions of a measure be reasonably related.

And regulating lobbyists -- feeble as the council-approved measure was -- has nothing to do with keeping career politicians comfortably ensconced in their offices.

All along, the council's scheme to put Measure R on the ballot was a naked deceit: a con game that used the League of Women Voters and the L.A. Chamber of Commerce as cover for the council members' view that public service is nothing more than self service.

The council has been rightfully put in its place. It may have ignored the will of the people and its own attorney's advice, but it can't ignore the law.