Local Races Appear to Be On as Proposition 93 Losing Badly in the Polls

The Field Poll released on Monday shows that Proposition 93 is losing 46% to 33% with another 21% undecided. Traditionally undecided voters for propositions break against them.

As I have explained in the past, while I find myself strongly against term limits, I equally find myself opposed to this measure.

For me term limits are both anti-democratic and also on a practical level an abysmal failure. We have a legislature that is largely inexperienced and the second that they become experienced, the legislator is termed out of office. Moreover, from a democratic standpoint (small "d"), the people should have the right to vote for the candidate of their choice.

It is the revolving door aspect of the legislature that Proposition 93 attempts to deal with, however, in my view, fails. It is true it extends the term in a given office, in the case of the Assembly, from three two-year terms to six two-year terms. From that standpoint, it improves the expertise in the Assembly markedly.

However, it has to rob Peter to pay Paul. And so while it increases the amount of experience in the Assembly, it decreases the amount of experience in the Senate. Right now the vast majority of legislators spend six years in the Assembly (sometimes four) and then move on to the Senate for eight. That means that there is experience among Senators from day one who have served already in the Assembly. With this law it is unclear what happens in the Senate. Will people run for the Senate having served time in the Assembly? That would reduce their amount of time in the Senate. Will people run for the first time in the Senate, that will produce a body much less experienced in legislature, to the point where the Senate will look much more like the Assembly than the current body.

Practical considerations aside, the big clincher for me is the fact that this process was set up to protect the current leadership. They put this specifically on the February ballot so it would take effect immediately and allow legislators currently slated to be termed out to run for re-election. Not surprisingly this measure is sponsored by the Speaker Fabian Nunez and Senate Majority Leader Don Parata. It is thus a measure aimed at preserving and prolonging their time as leaders in the Assembly.

Moreover it throws current races into chaos. At a local level the stakes may have been quite high. There is what could be called a Grandfather clause in the initiative. It would allow current legislators to serve 12 years in their current office regardless of whether they served in the other branch. Thus Senator Mike Machado who served already in the Assembly, would be allowed a third Senate term.

If the position passed, Senator Machado would be able to run for re-election to the Senate. That would force Assemblywoman Lois Wolk to stay in the Assembly where she could stay another six years if she so chose, or at least four years until the Senate seat opens again.

West Sacramento Mayor Christopher Cabaldon and Yolo County Supervisor Mariko Yamada would not have a seat to run for. Supervisor Yamada has already stated that she will not run for re-election for the County Supervisor position so at least the dominoes do not carry past the 8th Assembly Race.

All of this appears moot at this point as the proposition is failing.

And while I think this is a flawed law, it is also a sobering reminder that term limits are here to stay for a long time, because if this law, which is basically neutral or even more restrictive in terms of total terms cannot pass, no term limits reform law will likely pass.

The Field Poll puts people like me in the minority, with the majority of liberal Democrats strongly favoring the bill and a smaller majority of more moderate Democrats also favoring the bill.

However, I just do not believe this solves the problems of term limits. All it seems to do is protect the current leadership and frankly I have seen nothing from the current leadership that makes me want to see them protected.

Tomorrow it seems very likely that the Assembly races will launch again in earnest. Mayor Cabaldon has decided, it appears, to not accept voluntary campaign limits. Supervisor Yamada in the latest disclosure did not raise a lot of money and spent more than she took in. Meanwhile Lois Wolk will face a tough fight against Assemblyman Greg Aghazarian for the 5th Senate District.

As we can clearly see, campaign season is not over. After today, it has only just begun.

---Doug Paul Davis reporting

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