Opinion: Dust Up: Round three
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Have the reforms of the 1990s improved California politics? Depends on your point of view — or, according to a Times column, whether you’re retired. Former Gov. Pete Wilson, state Senate leader John Burton and former Assembly speaker Willie Brown raised eyebrows on that topic in a policy forum this month:
‘The Legislature was far less partisan than today,’ Wilson recalled of the 1960s. ‘... when John and Willie and I were all freshmen assemblymen, there was a great deal more drinking in the Legislature. These guys, the teetotalers, need to lighten up a bit.’
All half-humorous comments aside, notes George Skelton, ‘The group also agreed that term limits are too short and that the current Legislature suffers from inexperience.’
Now, those term limit rules are being revisited through Proposition 93. The initiative has some high-profile enemies and allies, and for this week’s Dust-Up, Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner and former Controller Steve Westly spar over the proposition’s pros and cons.
Today, in the defender’s corner, Westly argues that 93 ‘would make the state Legislature more efficient and effective’:
Currently, 12 of 34 legislative committees are chaired by first-year lawmakers. These committees determine the laws that affect our schools, housing, jobs, public safety, transportation and the environment. Under Proposition 93, legislators could gain experience before chairing a committee. This would benefit the process and, ultimately, the voters.Proposition 93’s reforms would also slow the constant campaign cycle that exists now. Termed-out legislators start campaigning early to win a seat in the other house or another office. Instead, legislators would continue to work for — and campaign to — constituents in their home district.
But, contends Poizner,
The question asked by The Times today is, why shouldn’t the public be allowed to vote for whomever it wants for as long as it wants?The answer is that the ability of voters to choose in elections is restricted in California — not by term limits, but by the politicians’ self-interested gerrymandering of legislative seats. Incumbents simply don’t lose, and seats don’t switch from one party to another, thanks to these safely drawn districts. [...] Today, the only way politicians ever leave office in California is because of our existing term-limits law.
Read the whole exchange and discuss the debate here.