STRETCHED TO THE LIMIT ON TERM RESTRICTIONS LEGISLATURE RULES MAKE LAWMAKERS LESS EFFECTIVE, LOBBIES MORE POWERFUL.

Byline: Paul Kujawsky

IT'S time to say it: Term limits are dumb. They don't improve the Legislature, and they're undemocratic.

The November 2004 report, ``Adapting to Term Limits: Recent Experience and New Directions,'' by Bruce E. Cain and Thad Kousser of the Public Policy Institute of California, assesses the impact of 1990's Proposition 140. Proposition 140 put a six-year lid on Assembly terms, and eight years on those in the state Senate (the briefest terms in the country).

The report concluded that term limits have not brought back the ``citizen legislator,'' as was intended. We still have career politicians; they're just less effective than they were before.

You don't need to take off your shoes to count the folks who want to hold office for a couple of terms, then get out again. Politicians like state politics. But with term limits, instead of settling into one position, they hopscotch about the political landscape. Take Sen. Richard Alarcon, D-Van Nuys, as an example. In 1993 Alarcon was elected to the Los Angeles City Council. In 1998 he moved on to the state Senate. It's 2005, and he's back in Los Angeles, running for mayor.

We also see political staffers seeking their former bosses' jobs. For example, West Valley Councilman Greig Smith worked for L.A. City Council member Hal Bernson from 1979 until 2003. When Bernson left because of term limits, Smith won Bernson's place on the council. This is nobody's idea of the ``citizen legislator.''

Term limits have given us the worst of both worlds. They don't influence who actually seeks public office, just how they do it. But they have made the Legislature weaker. Legislators, even those who come from other public offices, just don't have time to get really good at it. One legislator told the Public Policy Institute researchers, ``I felt like I was just beginning to become an effective member at the end of my third term in the Assembly'' - that is, as she was on her way out.

Short terms in office lead to short-term perspectives in the Legislature. The report quotes a committee staffer: ``There is absolutely less interest in the long-term, non-sexy issues. You don't have members pushing legislation that will show its fruits 10 years from now; it is of little value to them.'' Shortsightedness and the inability to plan for the future are not widely regarded as virtues.

Inexperience breeds dependence. Who has no term limits, and has both substantive expertise and institutional memory? Why, lobbyists, of course. Their influence has magnified with term limits, not dimmed. The Public Policy Institute report notes: ``A few new members confessed that in their first year, over 90 percent of their bills were drafted or given to them by lobbyists.'' Fund raising from these same lobbyists continues at a rip-roaring pace, the precise opposite of what term limiters wanted.

And suppose you like your representative? After a while you can't vote for him or her anymore. Term-limits proponents, ignoring the anti-democratic character of their position, dilate on the unfair advantages of incumbency. Being tall is an advantage, too, but we don't equalize the candidates by cutting some of them off at the ankles or knees. People often favor the incumbent just because they think he or she has done a decent job. If you don't like the incumbent, vote for someone else. But to force the electorate to say ``don't let me vote again'' is repulsive.

So let's hope that the rumors that the Legislature and the governor might trade a loosening of term limits for redistricting reform are true. Legislators drawing their own district boundaries is transparently self-dealing; it ought to stop. But don't simply mend term limits; end them.

Term limits neatly illustrate the Law of Unintended Consequences. More than a decade of experience shows that they do more harm than good. California voters are mature enough to learn from their mistakes. Let's fix this one.