2.  Wannabe Terminators Target Term Limits
    by Paul Jacob
    termlimits{at}lycos.com

Special to TLE

Arnold Schwarzenegger has joined the race for California's hopefully
soon-to-be-vacated governor's seat. Great. Arnold's a cool guy.

And Governor Gray Davis is a disgrace who deserves to be recalled. Totally.
He tells too many true lies -- for instance, about the $38 billion deficit
that was piling up on his desk last year even as election day drew near.
Davis's management of the power crisis didn't exactly demonstrate
electrifying leadership either.

Californians have been getting a raw deal. No wonder Governor Davis
squeaked back into office thanks only to the advantages of incumbency and
the political weakness of his opponent.

Schwarzenegger is not just another dreary career politician. And not just
another mega-muscled mega-millionaire. He came to America, he says, to be
in a country where "the government wasn't always breathing down your
neck or standing on your shoes." Starting with nothing, Schwarzenegger
flexed his freedom to become a super-successful bodybuilder, movie star,
and businessman. Whatever disagreements one might have with his politics,
such can-do spirit deserves respect.

Davis too has talent. His one great ability, that of all career
politicians, is the ability to cling to power. But even if he barely
survives the recall, Davis won't have forever to turn California into a
wasteland. He's term-limited. In a few years Californians will be rid of
him regardless.

Of course, most politicians hate term limits.

You could hardly pile up more proof of this in California. In 1990, led by
Willie Brown -- at that time the Speaker of the Assembly -- the politicians
and special interests spent millions to stem the term limit tide. Then,
after voters had passed term limits, the politicians spent millions more to
overturn term limits in court.

Now the politicians have taken the battle to the ballot box. In 1990,
Speaker Willie Brown, fearful of losing his job in the Assembly,
spearheaded the effort to skewer term limits. In 2002, fearful of losing
his job in the Senate, Senate President Pro Tem John Burton led a $10
million campaign to pass the politician-initiated Proposition 45 -- which
would have tacked 4 years onto the tenure of state legislators. But voters
saw through the deceptively worded measure and, in last year's March
primary, terminated it.

Now, just 18 months after a stern rebuff, California's career politicians,
like "Terminator" sequels or the Energizer bunny, are at it
again, getting ready to campaign to save the job not just of Gray Davis but
of every Sacramento politician about to be termed out of office. Including,
of course, Assembly Speaker Herb Wesson, currently serving his third term.

The scam is to split up this year's primaries so that the presidential
primary is held in March while primaries for other offices are held in
June. A politician-sponsored measure to extend terms would appear on the
March ballot, not the June one. (Why did you already know that?) This way,
if endangered politicians succeed in conning the voters in March, they have
time to file for the June primary and prepare for said primary. Brilliant,
eh?

The politicians may be running out of script ideas, though. The latest
notion constantly being floated is that voters should kill term limits
because, otherwise, they, the politicians, are sure to keep doing a lousy
job. According to this line of argument, state legislators need ten years
or so in office just to graduate from training wheels.

Of course, it's nonsense to suppose that politicians never did lousy jobs
in the days before term limits. Legislative term limits were passed in 1990
in California, but only started kicking out office-holders in 1997. The
phony power "deregulation" that turned out to be such a disaster
was passed in 1996. But let's go back in time even further.

In 1978, voters passed Proposition 13 to impose a cap on out-of-control
property taxes--taxes forcing some Californians out of their homes. Where
were all the super-expert politicians with their combined centuries of
experience then? Why did the voters have to take matters into their own
hands to save their own homes?

Of course, term limits don't guarantee good policy. But they do guarantee
that makers of bad policy won't be able to stick around forever, sticking
it to us forever. And fact is, the kinds of things you need to succeed as a
political leader are also the kinds of things you need to succeed in the
regular world. Rock-hard integrity is always good, for example.

Yet this campaign theme--how the only way we can improve the current crew
of politicians is to keep them in power forever--will apparently be the
crux of the new anti-term-limits crusade soon to be sprung on the citizens
of California.

Amazing what you can find out when you have spies in the enemy camp....
Golly, this is just like that movie "Commando."

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Paul Jacob is Senior Fellow at U.S. Term Limits, a Townhall.com member
group. To subscribe by email to Paul's Common Sense radio commentary, visit
http://www.termlimits.org/Press/Common_Sense/.

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