TERM LIMITS ROB STATE'S VOTERS; INSTITUTIONAL MEMORY, EXPERIENCE, EXPERTISE GAINED BY YEARS OF SERVICE ESSENTIAL FOR POLITICIANS.

Byline: Ed Edelman

IN 1990, the voters of California opted to enact Proposition 140, which limited the terms of state legislators and statewide elected officials. Assemblymen were limited to three two-year terms, senators to two four-year terms and statewide officials to two four-year terms. Also included was a lifetime ban on running for the same office after all the terms were served.

The recent session of the Legislature was the first where assemblymen were forced to retire because of term limits. Twenty-two were forced from office, which is more than 25 percent of the Assembly. An additional 10 members voluntarily did not run again.

This substantial rotation of new members in the Assembly has had a dramatic impact on the adoption of the state budget, as well as the slow pace of the legislative work. Next year, 16 Assembly members and 11 Senate members will be forced from office.

The 1997-98 state budget was adopted late, but this is nothing unusual. It was a budget where no one won and everyone lost despite the unexpected surplus of funds announced in May. The Legislature was in a unique position to reach consensus with the governor this year because of the $3 billion surplus from the improved economic conditions in California.

Gov. Pete Wilson wanted to use some of the surplus for a tax cut, while members of the Legislature wanted it for a long-overdue increase in salaries for state employees and for helping hard-pressed local governments, from which the state had taken property taxes in the past several years to help the state.

Instead of a win-win budget, the Assembly leadership in particular underestimated the determination of the governor when he threatened to use all the surplus to pay back, in one lump sum, more than $1 billion owed to the state pension funds.

I know personally some of the newly elected assemblymen. They are dedicated individuals who have a great concern for doing what is right. However, because of their inexperience, lack of institutional memory and expertise, they could not compete with such a veteran elected official as Wilson, who has served as mayor of San Diego, assemblyman and U.S. senator for more than three decades.

This past budget debacle clearly shows that institutional memory, experience and expertise gained by years of service are indispensable. This session also was criticized by Sacramento observers for being very slow-paced and without any coherent plan or goal.

I was an opponent of Proposition 140 when it passed in 1990. In my view, it deprived voters of the right to choose whom they wanted in elective office. If they were unhappy with their elected officials, they could simply vote those people out of office. There was no need for artificially imposed term limits.

Term limits, by their very nature, make an elected official look at short-term consequences. With term limits, there is a tendency for an elected official to constantly look at other elective offices or the private sector for his or her next job. Also, without institutional memory and expertise in our legislators, the lobbyists have more influence on the legislative process.

The California Constitution Revision Commission recently concluded an intensive study of state government and recommended that term limits be changed for the Assembly. California has the shortest term limits of any of the 22 states that have them.

The commission suggested extending the limits to 12 years and increasing the term from two to four years. It points out that many of the important committees of the California Assembly are, by necessity, chaired by freshmen assemblymen who are unfamiliar with the legislative process, as well as the subject matter under their jurisdiction.

The commission points to an alarming study that indicated that the number of freshmen assemblymen will always exceed one-third of the membership and possibly go as high as half under Proposition 140.

At the present time, a U.S. District Court judge has held the lifetime-ban provision of Proposition 140 unconstitutional. However, the judge stayed her decision pending appeal. This case will certainly go all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court.

In her decision, U.S. District Judge Claudia Wilken found that the lifetime ban violates the constitutional rights of voters because it restricts their rights to vote for whomever they choose. Also, she found that it violates the right of candidates, who are banned forever from again seeking the same office.

The supporters of term limits argued before the court that term limits would maximize legislative turnover, end political careerism, reduce advantages of incumbency, increase electoral competition and increase representativeness of the Legislature. However, the court held that those reasons were not compelling enough to overcome the burdens imposed by Proposition 140 on voting, expression and association.

In essence, Wilken found that Proposition 140 permanently restricted the voters' ability to vote for their preferred candidates, and this violated the First and 14th amendments to the U.S. Constitution.

It is ironic that at the time the federal government is giving power and responsibility back to the states (welfare reform), the legislatures in 22 states will be without their most experienced legislators to deal with these important issues.

The people of California deserve to have experienced, effective and dedicated elected officials representing them. Under term limits, we lose people with these qualities. Is this a situation that we really want?