It’s all been a big misunderstanding.
For some reason, those of us in the term limits movement got the crazy idea that California politicians don’t like term limits. How silly of us! Maybe it was the nearly $6 million legislators raised to run ads trashing the 1990 initiative. One could easily perceive that as opposition.
Or maybe we got confused when the legislators sued the voters the minute the voters passed limits. Maybe that lawsuit was just their quiet way of making sure the term limits that politicians cherish so deeply wouldn’t be overturned later after legislators became even more emotionally attached to the idea. That sounds right.
And then when that second lawsuit came along … well, that did seem a little negative. Now these public-spirited legislators are working overtime to make dramatic improvements to California’s law: extend the limits by 50 percent in the Senate; double the House limit; nobody termed-out again until 2012; allow a total of 24 years in the Legislature, even if they’ve already served 14 years. It’s all becoming clear now.
They love term limits so much that they want to spend the rest of their lives serving under term limits. Sure, you and I don’t think that a 38-year career in the Legislature is a term limit, but we just don’t love term limits as much as these guys. God bless them, every one.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.