California voters approved Proposition 140, which limits state legislators' terms, because they wanted to shake up the system by breaking the stranglehold of incumbents on government and politics. Regardless of how its constitutionality is resolved, one thing is clear: Proposition 140 has done at least part of its job.
The first legislative session after Assembly term limits kicked in was marked by a huge freshman class, inexperienced in the Byzantine rituals of legislating policy; it was led by a speaker, Cruz M. Bustamante (D-Fresno), only marginally more experienced. For much of the time, government by greenhorns left the Assembly in disarray. In negotiations over welfare reform and the state budget, the lower house was rolled by a wily Republican governor, Pete Wilson, and a long-serving legislative powerhouse, state Senate President Pro Tem Bill Lockyer (D-Hayward).
But the advent of term limits has also meant an increase in the number of women and minorities, particularly Latinos, serving in the Legislature--and they hold positions of real power. Proposition 140 has had the effect of restructuring legislative leadership and ending the "imperial speakership," most recently occupied by Willie Brown, now mayor of San Francisco; it has shifted power from the Assembly to the more experienced Senate. Ironically, much of the grousing about Bustamante's "deliberate" leadership style--or "indecisive" behavior, as some critics contend--stems from fond memories of the self-styled "ayatollah of the Legislature."
Even if term limits are eventually overthrown in court, it is unlikely that any Assembly speaker can again amass the raw power held by Brown or Jesse M. Unruh. Current legislators have had a taste of quick, real and independent power and are not about to surrender it voluntarily. Furthermore, under Proposition 208, the campaign-finance reform initiative passed by California voters last November and now under court challenge, legislative leaders can no longer wield clout by raising large sums of money and transferring it to favored legislative candidates.
Legislating did get done this session, despite the sometimes Keystone Kops atmosphere in the Capitol. This wasn't due simply to the skills of seasoned legislators like former-Speaker Curt Pringle (R-Garden Grove) and Lockyer. External forces pushed the Legislature into making policy decisions, too. The perking economy made a middle-class tax cut, something attractive to politicians of all stripes, much easier. Federal mandates concentrated legislators' minds on the need to deal with welfare and immigration reform.
