Schwarzenegger to Offer Lawmakers a Deal

Schwarzenegger to Offer Lawmakers a Deal

Los Angeles Times (LATWP News Service) (CA) Bakersfield Californian, The (CA)

July 13, 2006

SACRAMENTO , Calif. -- Hoping to resurrect an idea voters rejected in last year's special election, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger plans to offer lawmakers a deal: He'll support an easing of term limits if they'll agree to change the way California draws voting districts.

Schwarzenegger said in an interview Thursday he does not believe term limits have improved Sacramento 's political culture. Allowing legislators to stay in office longer would be worthwhile, he said, if it induced them to put a proposal on the ballot that would strip them of the power to carve political boundaries.

The governor reasons that lawmakers may not want to change voting districts, most of which favor incumbents, but they dislike term limits even more. One idea already under consideration in the Legislature would double the number of years members could serve in the Assembly -- to 12 from six -- provided they not run for the Senate when their term is up. Senators' maximum service could be extended to 12 years from eight.

In 1990, voters imposed limits of three two-year terms in the Assembly and two four-year terms in the Senate. Changes to the law require voter approval.

Schwarzenegger says that he wants to make California elections more competitive, and that a new method of redistricting would help. He is backing a measure by Sen. Alan Lowenthal, D-Long Beach, that would transfer political map-making powers to a panel of 11 citizens, chosen by a bipartisan group of lawmakers and judges, and take effect after the 2010 census.

The initiative voters defeated in November would have given the task to three retired judges appointed by the Legislature from a pool selected by the state's Judicial Council, and would have gone into effect immediately.

The governor hopes to build a consensus in the Capitol in the next month for his new plan, including an extension of the time state lawmakers can serve, and put the package before voters in November.

"I would like for them to really push forward with this whole idea," Schwarzenegger said in an interview Thursday. "It's very clear that people would like to see redistricting and to have a different system than the way it is now, with the gerrymandering, and to perfect the democracy."

Schwarzenegger recently held a meeting on the issue in his smoking tent in the Capitol courtyard. He invited former legislators, political consultants and representatives of good government groups that want to end the current arrangement, in which lawmakers can draw their districts to favor Republicans, Democrats or independents.

"There is an inherent conflict of interest in allowing legislators to draw their own districts," said Dan Schnur, who was an aide to former Republican Gov. Pete Wilson and who attended the meeting. "We've put together a coalition across partisan and ideological lines to push for the elimination of that conflict of interest."

If the governor can get the two major parties behind his plan -- a level of bipartisan cooperation that eluded him last year -- he believes he can present voters something more salable. When voters rejected his redistricting plan last year, it was in a package of four proposals he championed to change state government. All were defeated.

Voters like term limits, poll shows, but lawmakers do not.

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Author: Peter Nicholas

Section: Domestic News