Last week, as the U.S. Senate held show votes defeating Democratic and Republican sponsored budget plans, senior legislators in back rooms continued the real negotiations. The Senate’s Gang of Six is using the recommendations of President Obama’s Deficit Commission to design a bipartisan proposal to increase revenue, decrease spending and fix entitlements.
In the House, Speaker John Boehner and Leaders Nancy Pelosi and Eric Cantor talk tough for the cameras, but are likely deciding how to get a compromise bill through their polarized caucuses.
U.S. history is filled with examples of experienced legislators successfully using their mastery of the legislative process and cross party relationships to solve problems. President Ronald Reagan and Speaker Tip O’Neill saved social security. Sen. McCain and the Gang of 14 stopped a Senate meltdown over judicial nominees. Sen. Collins and Sen. Lieberman saved the repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. If seasoned legislators are a reason to have hope for the nation’s budget mess, their absence is a reason to fear for California.
The Gang of Six – a bipartisan group of six senators, consisting of three Democrats and three Republicans – averages 11 years of Senate service, three years more than any California state senator. It took 20 years for Boehner to become speaker of the House. In contrast, it took John Perez two years to become speaker of the California Assembly. U.S. Rep. Kevin McCarthy’s feat of becoming House majority whip in four years is impressive, but pales next to Assemblywoman Toni Atkins, who got the California Assembly whip job in 10 days!
Such meteoric rises to power were not always the norm in California. From 1950 to 1995, no assembly speaker had held office less than six years. That string of seasoned speakers ended in 1996 with full enforcement of Proposition 140, California’s term limit amendment. Since then, speakers have averaged only three years of prior assembly experience.
It’s no surprise that California Gov. Jerry Brown is driving the fiscal agenda. His 16 years in state office is more than the assembly speaker and the majority and minority leaders and whips, combined.
Proposition 140 limited state legislators to six years in the assembly and eight years in the senate. That clock leaves little time to nurture cross party relationships, and effectively requires that leaders be chosen before they have time to demonstrate effectiveness at the state level.
Instead, they are chosen based on their resume and success in other arenas. It’s akin to picking your doctor based on her first two years of medical school, instead of whether her patients do well.
You might think that the dangerous lack of experienced legislators would be balanced by the beneficial effects of term limits. In their 1990 ballot guide arguments, Proposition 140’s proponents promised to “create more competitive elections” and “remove the grip that vested interests have over the legislature.”
These results might be worth having to roll the dice a bit on leaders, but there is precious little evidence that either has come to pass. According to the Public Policy Institute of California, contributions to the senate and assembly continue to rise in the same ratio they did before Proposition 140.
From 2002-2008, the total donations per state Senate candidate rose by $180,000 in California. In New York and Texas, the two largest states without term limits, the same measure rose by $160,000 and $165,000, respectively, according to data from BallotPedia. Term limits, it appears, do not slacken the almighty dollar’s grip on the political system.
Evidence of more competitive elections is similarly scarce. Part of the rallying cry for term limits was the re-election rate of California incumbents in 1988: 100 percent for state senators and 96 percent for assemblymembers. But despite term limits, incumbency gained power in 2010, even overcoming death. Every senator and assemblymember running for re-election won, including Senator Jenny Oropeza, who died almost a month before Election Day.
Term limits do reduce the number of incumbents running, but the races don’t necessarily become populist free-for-alls. Instead, parties and donors know when legislators will be “termed out,” and can start buying influence years in advance. Insiders not only know who will run for state Senate in 2012, they have a fair idea who might run in 2020, and how that will make the dominos fall for every assembly and council election in between. Unless someone tries to jump the line, the next truly exciting moment in Hillcrest politics will be when and if Rep. Susan Davis retires.
The only thing term limits really gave us was a license to shirk our duty to remove bad legislators at the ballot box, and we paid for it with our most effective and experienced lawmakers. For leaders picked on the quick, I have high hopes that Speaker Perez and Majority Whip Atkins, two out members of the LGBT community, will be able to tackle the state budget. If they can, Californians will know they have strong leadership for the next big challenge.
As long as it comes in the next four years. After that, who knows?
