For more than 15 years, since passage of Proposition 140 in 1990
limited elected state officials to either six or eight years in one
office, no one has even so much as altered those term limits.
Rather, they’ve spread to cities and counties all over the state,
as voters consistently opt for fresh faces over experience and
inside knowledge.
For more than 15 years, since passage of Proposition 140 in 1990 limited elected state officials to either six or eight years in one office, no one has even so much as altered those term limits. Rather, they’ve spread to cities and counties all over the state, as voters consistently opt for fresh faces over experience and inside knowledge.
When voters have considered even a mild loosening of term limits, they’ve invariably slapped it down. The latest attempt was the 2002 Proposition 45, aiming to let state legislators run for one extra term if they could gather signatures from 20 percent of the voters who turned out in the preceding election.
This mild change lost by a wide 58-42 percent margin, despite millions of dollars worth of television commercials extolling the value of experience.
But Prop. 45 lost by a far slimmer margin in Los Angeles County than elsewhere, falling by only 51-49 percent in California’s most populous county.
So it’s no surprise that the next challenge to term limits comes there.
Los Angeles voters will be asked this fall to extend current limits for city council members from eight years to 12, a plan placed on the ballot – not surprisingly – by the current council, seven of whose 15 members will otherwise be termed out by the middle of 2009.
Also not suprisingly, no current council member had much negative to say about term limits while running for office. All had their way cleared when term limits forced their predecessors out.
But listen to them now: “The city just moves so slowly,” conservative Councilman Dennis Zine whined to a reporter. “It takes eight months to get a simple program passed. If you want to see people follow things through, three terms would be much better.”
“Two terms really isn’t long enough,” opined fellow Councilman Greig Smith. “There are a lot of young people here who should have an opportunity to serve longer.”
One reason Los Angeles voters in 1994 imitated the statewide term limit model was that for decades before then it was all but impossible to unseat an incumbent council member. Only two sitting members were ousted by challengers in the 20 years leading up to that vote. Even members who appeared to sleep through almost all council meetings were routinely re-elected.
But there has been complete turnover since then.
Some termed out council members have joined the term-limit musical chairs game played so regularly in Sacramento. Others termed out of the state Legislature joined the council, including current Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, who won a city council seat two years after his first run for mayor failed in 2001, a race that came less than one year after he was termed out as state Assembly speaker.
Meanwhile, termed out council members like Jackie Goldberg and Mark Ridley-Thomas found refuge and new spots on the public payroll in Sacramento.
But local term limits have not spawned nearly so much reshuffling as state limits have inspired in Sacramento. For one thing, there’s only one city council rather than the two legislative houses featured in state government. As a result, many termed-out council members have returned to private life and seemingly disappeared, while state politicians seem to keep running continually for new offices.
The local term limit law differs from the state’s also in that while Proposition 140 slashed the staffs of legislators, no such cuts were made in Los Angeles. Council members have plenty of staff to provide information and are not relegated to depending on lobbyists for research, as legislators sometimes appear to be.
Then, too, local government issues generally are not as complex as those taken up in Sacramento. City council members still deal more with potholes than global warming. It may take a while to master police issues, labor union questions and some other matters before them, but not as long as it often does to learn the complexities of state water policy, smog and other issues legislators handle.
So some arguments that can legitimately be made against state term limits simply do not apply in Los Angeles.
Which means this vote will likely end up a simple yes-or-no on the very concept of limiting terms. If voters opt again for the ancient Greek republican concept of retiring officeholders after a few years, term limits will stand as they are. If they vote for longer terms, voters everywhere in California can almost certainly count on seeing the same question on their own ballots again, and very soon.
Elias is author of the bestselling book “The Burzynski Breakthrough: The Most Promising Cancer Treatment and the Government’s Campaign to Squelch It.” His e-mail address is
td*****@ao*.com
