Commentary: Proposition 93 Will Have a Huge Impact on Local Races

As difficult as it is to believe, the California Primary Election is only three weeks away. In addition to likely having an impact over who will be the nominee for both parties for the first time probably in my lifetime, there will be several key ballot initiatives on the ballot. Probably the most important of those is the term limits initiative, Proposition 93.

Why is Proposition 93 so important? Legislators intentionally put this on the ballot hoping it would pass and therefore be in effect for the June Primary where all the state legislators who were termed out would get another term in the Senate and three more terms potentially in the Assembly.

Putting this into local terms, that means that Mike Machado, who is currently the State Senator for District 5 and termed out, could decide after February 5 to run for another term. That means that Assembly Lois Wolk would no longer run for the State Senate and would instead run for reelection to the State Assembly. That means that Christopher Cabaldon and Mariko Yamada would no longer run for the State Assembly and they would decide what they were going to do. Supervisor Yamada has indicated that she would not run for the County Supervisor spot, if she had, then that would put the candidacies of Jim Provenza and John Ferrera into doubt. It will likely mean that Mayor Cabaldon would run again for reelection as Mayor of West Sacramento.

In other words, depending on what Senator Machado does, the passage of Proposition 93 would have a huge cascading effect on local races, at least on the Democratic side. It probably would not impact the Republican side and therefore set up a tough race between Senator Machado and Assemblyman Greg Aghazarian for the Senate seat. Senator Machado narrowly defeated Former Stockton Mayor Gary Podesto in 2004. How would he fare in another tough race? Hard to say.

Local impact aside, the Proposition itself deserves scrutiny. The commercials I have seen interestingly enough feature a political scientist from UC San Diego. I happen to know Thad Cousser because he went to Berkeley for Graduate School in Political Science where I took a couple of classes several years ago. More importantly, he makes the argument that this initiative would promote better government by providing better experience for the legislators.

That is actually not entirely true. Overall it reduces the maximum number of years served in the legislature for 6 years in the Assembly and 8 years in the Senate, to 12 years regardless of the house in the legislature. One of the big problems with the current law is that there is no acquisition of expertise about legislative process. Once legislators learn the ropes in the Assembly, they have to move on. The same thing occurs in the Senate.

However, I would argue that while this might fix that problem in the Assembly by enabling people to serve up to 12 years there, it does not fix the problem in the Senate and in fact, could make it worse. That's because most people enter the Senate after serving at least four and up to six years in the Assembly. That makes the State Senate a body that has greater expertise in legislative matters. However, by allowing members to serve their entire career in one branch, that means that many will come to the State Senate with no expertise in the legislature at all. Those who have served in the legislature would only be able to serve one or two terms in the Senate. So while it will make the Assembly more experienced, it does so at the expense of the Senate. In other words, instead of helping expertise, it simply shuffles the chairs on the deck.

The biggest problem for me is that instead of fixing the problems of term limits, it has become a way by which incumbent leadership can stay in power another four to six years. So the Speaker of the Assembly can remain the speaker for six additional years and the Senate leader another four years. In fact, it is specifically set up to do that by having the election in February so it will be in effect by June. By allowing current leadership to remain in place.

At the end of the day, I strongly oppose term limits because I think they are anti-Democratic. They prevent the voters from electing whomever they want to represent them. I think the expertise argument is important. California is one of the largest economies in the world and it is run by a bunch of novices at the legislative level and as a result, we get poorly written legislation and have given undue power to the permanent classes of lobbyists and aids in Sacramento.

However, Proposition 93 does little to change that. Any benefit it has for providing more stability and expertise in the Assembly is nullified by taking away that stability and expertise from the Senate. Therefore, it does little to change the way politics works in California. And for me that's the bottom line. I have nothing invested in seeing the current class of largely ineffectual leadership in both houses of the legislature manipulate the process to remain in power another few years. If we are going to change term limits, let's either extend the length of time people can serve or end it all together. Otherwise, we're merely shuffling the chair on the deck without addressing the key problems.

---Doug Paul Davis reporting

Commentary: Early Primary Leads to Uncertain Role for California in Presidential Elections

Interesting article in this morning's Sacramento Bee on the impact of the early February Primary in California.

The belief is that while the Presidential Candidates are not treating California like they are Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina, California is reaping some rewards from the move.

The Sacramento Bee says:

"As candidates enter the thick of primary season, most are saving their serious campaign efforts for states holding January elections such as Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina.

That's largely because California's Feb. 5 primary date is no longer unique – or all that early. More than 20 other states followed suit by scheduling their elections for the same day, and six states leapfrogged California altogether by holding their contests in January.

Some political analysts believe the nearly two dozen "Super Tuesday" states may simply validate nominees chosen by early state voters as the field shrinks throughout January."

We are not seeing Candidates coming to the state fair or going to the local farmer's markets in search of votes. None of the candidates have aired campaign ads in the state's big media markets.

They quote a Republican consultant and California adviser to Mitt Romney:

"The governor was correct that it would make California more relevant, and it has, but the state is still in a second-tier category with the rest of the country... What moving us up has done is saved us from being completely irrelevant, which the state has been in the past."

And that's the bottom line--California is not a battleground at this point but it is also not irrelevant.

According to the article, California has been the fourth most visited state in the nation. There were appearances by all of the candidates at the Democratic State Convention earlier this year and by several of the Republican candidates at the Republican State Convention.

However, for the most part, California is viewed as a state in which to raise money rather than a state in which to court votes.

"When Schwarzenegger signed legislation to move the primary date, he bemoaned that candidates previously "collected millions of dollars in campaign contributions, and then they left as quickly as possible. I'm happy to say that those days are over."

Political strategists say the governor was partly correct. Candidates have made more public appearances, shaken more hands and answered more media questions. But almost every public event has been associated with a fundraiser, still a major reason candidates flock to California."

There was an ulterior motive by the state Democratic leaders in moving the state up in the primary season. State Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez and State Senate President Pro Tem Don Perata have pushed for a change in term limit laws and the February election gives them enough time to pass the law and run for re-election.

My own view of the primary system is rather mixed. On the one hand, I am not completely convinced that a system in which small states that are somewhat national outliers are decisive by-and-large in selecting the party nominees for President is a good one.

On the other hand, I am also not convinced, at least in most cases, that the party nominee would have been significantly different under a previous system.

The reason for this is that if you take primaries out of the equation and look at the who the party nominees are you find that they are usually the ones with the best campaign organization, the best ability to raise money, and generally the most accomplished or biggest name in the race. The Republican front runner has always won. The Democrats have elected some people who might have surprised you at the time, Jimmy Carter, Michael Dukakis, and Bill Clinton. But then you have to ask yourself, did the primary season cause this, or did these people end up as the best known, most money, etc. And I have a hard time arguing otherwise even in the case of Jimmy Carter. Neither Dukakis nor Clinton ran against strong fields, they were clearly the strongest in a weak field.

Nevertheless the prospect of having the nominees determined by early February, does not seem conducive to a healthy system, where the two main nominees will essentially battle it out for nine months until long after everyone but the most partisan of partisans care anymore.

We would be far better off with rotating regional primaries starting in March or April. Finish the primaries by the end of June, have the party conventions in late July or August, and leave a few months for the horse race to finish up.

At the end of the day as well, the attempts to change term limits in time for election seems like a transparent power grab move and as I have stated here in the past, does not solve the real problems posed by term limits, rather they shuffled the chairs on the deck so to speak. Meantime, changing the rules midstream may have a huge impact locally on our elections. The Assembly race has been going on for nearly a year already and the candidates have probably raised a combined 6 or 7 hundred thousand. Assemblywoman Lois Wolk is without a primary challenge if the State Senate seat is indeed open, so she is waiting back to see what happens with the term limit rules. Neither Mayor Christopher Cabaldon nor Supervisor Mariko Yamada have that luxury, so they have been going all-out for a seat that there is a chance will not be open two months from now. I do not see this as a wise decision by the California Democratic Leadership. In fact, just the opposite.

At the end of the day, I doubt most people are going to be satisfied with the Presidential nominee process or the fact that voting starts in just over a month.

---Doug Paul Davis reporting

Commentary: Beware of Reforms Wrapped As Sheep's Clothing

In 2000, Californians weary of the ever-rising cost of campaigns and perceived influence of big money passed Proposition 34 which seemed to be a constitutional answer to the problem of campaign spending limits. It did several notable things--first, it limited the size of contributions from groups and individuals to candidates--something that the courts had allowed already at the federal level. Individuals are limited to contributions in the range of $3,000 for the legislature, $5,000 for the constitutional offices, and $21,000 for governor.

But the big reform is that it set set "voluntary" limits for campaign spending. It was voluntary in that in order to have a ballot statement in the sample ballot, you had to accept the limits. But you could not accept the limits and forgo having a ballot statement. It seems that probably two-thirds or more have accepted these limits in the three subsequent elections. It also have cost of living increases so that the number unlike federal limitations is constantly adjusted for inflation. So for a State Assembly Primary the initial number was $425,000 in total spending, now it is about $483,000.

Here were the original limits:

	Primary	General
Governor	$6,374,000	$10,624,000
Other Statewide	4,249,000	6,374,000
BOE	1,062,000	1,594,000
Senate	637,000	956,000
Assembly	425,000	744,000

The law is well written enough that it will be tough to find loopholes in the language except for one very big exemption. There is no limit to the amount individuals can donate to political parties and there is no limit as to how much political parties can spend at the behest of candidates. "A campaign expenditure made by a political party on behalf of a candidate is not attributed to these spending limits." Moreover, "Prop. 34 states that it is designed to strengthen the role of political parties in financing political campaigns. " (See: FPPC).

The result of this loophole is twofold. It is possible that in contested primaries, the state party can intercede on behalf of one candidate over another. This will be of particular interest to watch as Yolo County will have two possible contested legislature primaries--The Assembly where it is Mayor of West Sacramento Christopher Cabaldon against Yolo County Supervisor Mariko Yamada and in the State Senate where it is Assemblywoman Lois Wolk against John Garamendi.

Second, in targeted general elections, the state parties can spend what they want, which means essentially that spending and influence of money will remain the same but the state parties will be more important since they control the unlimited money.

We now see a similar type of reform effort in the term limits reform--"The Term Limits and Legislative Reform." As I have expressed in the past, term limits in my opinion has not been a good thing for California. UC Berkeley researcher Bruce Cain, one of the preeminent scholars on California Politics recently wrote in a Sacramento Bee Op-ed:

"But some aspects of term limits have not been beneficial. A recent comparative term limits study sponsored by the National Conference of State Legislatures discovered that term limits have weakened legislative expertise and leadership in many states.

This is particularly evident in California, where members rarely serve long enough on committees to learn the complexities of the relevant subject matter, and where the Assembly chairs are frequently first-term members.

This has several bad consequences, including a significant decline in legislative oversight -- the sometimes tedious task of scrutinizing how agencies spend money. Oversight requires knowledge of what agencies have promised in the past and detailed questions about their current operations. The best time to hold agencies' feet to the fire is during the budget process, but increasingly members have opted out of using budget hearings for that purpose. There is just not enough time to develop the knowledge to match the agencies' expertise. The public wants to be assured that public money is well spent, but without the proper checks and balances, bureaucrats face less scrutiny than ever before.

A proliferation of silly bills in the Legislature is testimony to the dual imperative of the term-limited politician: Get something out as quickly as possible so you can set yourself up to run for another office, and work on bite-size problems rather than tough, long-term problems since that is all you have time for. But some of our problems require a long-term perspective: improving schools and fixing the prison system."

Professor Cain in the end supports this reform as a means for gaining expertise in the legislative leadership. While I respect Cain's expertise and body of work, I disagree with his final conclusion here. I am just not certain in the long run it really accomplishes those goals. I say this as a virulent critic of all term limits. In my opinion we have a perfectly good term limits law already on the books, they are called elections.

What the law does is instead of limiting members to three two-year terms in the Assembly and two four-year terms in the Senate, it limits the total time in the legislature to twelve years, regardless of office. So you can foresee some members spending twelve rather than six years in the Assembly and I think that will help the Assembly. But what happens to the State Senate? That is less clear, it is not generally an entry-level office, so you would assume most members will still serve in the Assembly first in order to get elected to the Senate, that will mean they can only serve two terms in the Senate, which is what we have today. In the end, we are not really increasing expertise and leadership ability with this reform.

A more realistic approach would be to expand the amount of terms in each branch slightly. Would the voters go for that? Hard to know. The voters may go for this, although it would be fairly easy to as Cain suggests, "argue against changes in term limits by suggesting that sitting members will benefit: It plays to the public's populist suspicion that elected officials are out for themselves."

In the end, the I see this as a ploy by the current leadership to maintain their leadership positions that would expire this year. So what you have is an early Presidential primary in February with this proposition on the ballot, that would given them time if the measure passes to run in June for their old seats. I see this as a cynical ploy for the leadership to maintain power rather than a serious effort for reform.

---Doug Paul Davis reporting

Wrong Solution To Term Limits

Let me make this clear--the Term Limits law passed in California is one of the worst initiatives that California voters have passed with the most unintended consequences since Proposition 13. For those who thought that Term Limits would produce more competition for legislative seats, redistricting has pretty much taken care of that ideal. Moreover, you have placed a huge governmental system and the eighth largest economy in the world (we've slipped recently) in the hands of rank amateurs. As soon as legislators learn how to actually govern, they are termed out.

This has forced an accelerated Peter Principle on California governance, because instead of doing away with career politicians, it creates a revolving door of mediocre ones, shuffling from office to office, because what they lack in expertise about government and their specific job, they gain in expertise on how to win political office. So it is actually the worst of all worlds--you have career politicians pushed into positions of higher office, rather than stuck in the lower level of the legislature where they can gain some expertise on how to craft legislation.

The other unintended consequence is that expertise in government is always a valued commodity. And if the elected legislators do not have that expertise, that void will be filled by unelected staff members and more problematically by unelected lobbyists. The power in Sacramento has been transferred from the elected members of the legislature to the powerful interests and lobbyists.

Term limits was one of those things that sounds good on paper to some who thought they could break the stranglehold of career politicians and probably as importantly then Speaker Willie Brown, but it is a disaster in practice. Unfortunately most people do not pay sufficient attention to the California legislature to realize that.

The dangers of the initiative system are that once done, it is near impossible to undo. That leads us to the latest attempt to undo the damage.

Past attempts to add terms have failed. Thus, the current attempt is a bit more innovative. Presently you can serve three-two year terms in the Assembly and two-four year terms in the Senate. That is a total of 14 years in the legislature. The current change will allow a total 12 years to be served in the legislature regardless of the house of the legislature you serve in. That way they can sell it to the public as a more stringent measure since it reduces the overall years a legislator can serve.

That makes sense, so you would serve up to six two years in the Assembly or three four year terms in the Senate or some combination thereof.

The advantage is of course, instead of having to serve only six years in the Assembly, you could serve 12 and have a much more experienced body.

The biggest beneficiary in this is of course Speaker of the Assembly Fabian Nunez. He's not only the biggest beneficiary but also the individual pushing this legislation. And he has the California Teacher's Association and the State Chamber of Commerce carrying the water for him on the legislation.

The proposal is also drafted in such a way that existing officeholders who have not used up all of the time allowed under the current term limits law, can serve out the extended time allowed until they bump up against the overall limit for the house.

What that means is that all of the people lining up to run for the 8th Assembly District and 5th Senate District, because Lois Wolk and Mike Machado are termed out respectively, may have to wait because Wolk would get six more years and Machado four more years--if they want it. That would throw everyone's plans into flux.

And the legislators are pushing for the February Primary for the President only, so that the voters can pass this term limits law in February and then in June all of the incumbents can run for reelection without being termed out.

This all sounds good if you are an opponent of term limits. But if you look closely, it doesn't solve the problem, it creates more problems.

This law would probably improve the situation in the Assembly. Members could run and hold an Assembly seat for 12 years. That is twice the length they can hold it now and that would stop the revolving door of legislators and Speakers.

However, it may make the situation even worse in the State Senate. Normally you have people who have spent time in the State Assembly, and who are experienced legislators moving over to the State Senate. But it may not work that way anymore. If you spend 12 years in the State Assembly, you would not be able to serve any time in the State Senate. Conceivably, you could have people moving from the State Assembly to the State Senate and only allowed to serve one term, creating a revolving door at the State Senate level. Furthermore, a large number of seats would probably be held by people with no legislative service at all.

Moreover, you still have the Peter Principle at work, where people who have served their now 12 years look toward another office to hold rather than gaining expertise in the office they currently hold. So they move from the state legislature to Constitutional Offices or possibly Congressional Offices.

This bill doesn't seem to solve the problems, rather it seems designed to give Fabian Nunez another six years as Speaker of the Assembly.

This may end up being one term limits reform bill I will vote against.

---Doug Paul Davis reporting