Your eyes on California Government

NOV. 21, 2011

By KATY GRIMES

It is not uncommon for state legislators to aspire to national political offices in Congress or the U.S. Senate after serving in the state Legislature. However, legislators seem to be setting a new trend, and are heading back home to run for local offices.

Assemblyman Gil Cedillo, D-Los Angeles, has made it official that he is planning to run for Los Angeles City Council, once his Assembly term is up. One of the most senior members of the Legislature, Cedillo has been in the Senate and Assembly since 1998.

Sen. Joe Simitian, D-Palo Alto, announced that he will run again for Santa Clara County supervisor, having once held the position before running for the Legislature. Simitian was elected to the Assembly in 2000, and the Senate in 2004.

Assemblyman Kevin Jeffries, R-Lake Elsinore, has announced his candidacy for Riverside County supervisor. Jeffries, elected to the Assembly in 2006, has spent much of his entire career in the public sector, including nearly three decades as a volunteer Riverside County firefighter.

Assemblyman Paul Cook, R-Yucca Valley,  a retired Marine Corps Colonel, announced that he is running for the San Bernardino County Board of Supervisors. Cook, has been in the Assembly since 2006, and served as mayor of Yucca Valley.

Assemblyman Nathan Fletcher is running for mayor of San Diego. He has been in the Assembly since 2008. Critics say that he amassed the most liberal voting record for Republicans as a way to position himself for his future run back in his home district.

While these five legislators have extensive experience, none of them are headed for private sector jobs once they leave the Legislature. They are going back to their home districts to run for city council, mayor and county political offices.

At one time in American history, the tradition was that legislators would to go back to the private sector once they had completed their political service. Today, 20 years after term limits was passed by California voters, most lawmakers who leave the Assembly and Senate continue to work in some type of public sector job.

The Political Industry

Most states operate with a part-time legislature, as California did until 1967. But then Democrat Assembly Speaker Jess Unruh convinced politicians that California needed  professional, full-time legislators.  Many believe that was the pivotal change that was the beginning of California’s downward spiral, creating an elite class of professional politician. And, only 10 years later in 1977, Jerry Brown instituted the unionization of government employees, sealing the sweetheart deal for professional politicians with state-paid union support.

Lawmakers today claim that because of term limits, they have less state legislative experience than their predecessors did. Many involved with state politics say that this has created more dependence on long-time, experienced staff, as well as expert paid lobbyists. Some legislators have even complained that their political staff hold more sway than they do with lobbyists and special interest groups.

Today’s legislators are not coming from the private sector as much as in past years – many come from unions or from local government.  And few legislators return to private sector jobs.

Part-Time Legislature

Not all legislators are quite so beholden to “public service.” Assemblywoman Shannon Grove, R-Bakersfield, introduced legislation earlier in the year to require legislators to wait five years before accepting state appointments, after their terms expire.

“They can come back to their own districts and build something, employ someone or provide a service. If they can’t, they can live in a cardboard box under the rules that they’ve created for the rest of us to live under,” Grove said in a recent speech.

Legislators are far too removed from the laws they impose on the rest of the state, Grove said, and perhaps would be more realistic if they too were subjected to their own rule making.

But Grove’s bill, AB 1078, has met a similar fate as most good-government bills, designed to reel in politicians or reform the political process. This bill is stuck in the Democratically controlled Assembly Rules Committee, without the possibility of assignment to a committee.  The bill has had no analysis done on it by legislative staff, and will probably not see the light of day.

Since that attempt at reform apparently will not work, Grove sponsored a ballot initiative that would allow voters to re-establish a Citizen Legislature. Grove believes that elected legislators should work part-time at the job, with part-time pay, while holding a regular, private sector job. She says that they need to serve for a few years , “then leave politics to live their lives in the shoes of ordinary citizens, living under the laws they made.”

Many say that until California’s Legislature goes back to part-time, politics in this state is nothing more than political industry.

Grove came to the Legislature from the private sector, where she built a successful business from the ground-up. Every cost in a business is open to scrutiny and cuts, said Grove, but a business will grow with strict attention to the bottom-line – the same standard that the Legislature should apply to budgets.

A recent poll conducted by The Los Angeles Times and the USC/Dornsife College of Letters Arts and Sciences, asked respondents if they were supportive of changing the state’s full-time Legislature to part-time, with part-time pay, as many other states already have. 65 percent of the respondents said yes.

Among the poll respondents, the idea of making legislators part-time showed surprising bipartisan support: 58 percent of Democrats, 75 percent of Republicans and 67 percent of independents were in favor of such a change.

And with the Legislature’s approval rating at an embarrassing 25 percent percent, Grove’s initiative just might gather a head of steam.

Political Futures

Because political power can be addictive, not many legislators voluntarily go quietly back to the private sector. Once a politician has had a taste of the power and influence that comes with the job, going back to an insurance business, a union, a law firm, or a family farm may not hold the same level of sexiness and influence that politics can.

While term limits were imposed because voters were fed up with career politicians, but activists from both parties complain that the political climate in California is more contentious than ever. And politicians merely move to well-paid, influential positions on state panels, boards and commissions once they leave the Legislature, suggesting that term limits did not create a true citizen legislature.

It used to be the other way around, where the local city council and county offices served as the “farm team” for the Legislature. Politicians would serve locally and then run for statewide office. However, now local offices often pay more, the politician gets live close to home, and in many instances, they have more clout.

Arturo Chavez, Cedillo’s District Director, said that since Los Angeles is the second largest city in the country, Cedillo is eminently qualified for the job, precisely because of his many years of experience in the Legislature. With many laws passed on behalf of city interests, “Assemblyman Cedillo has already made a major impact on Los Angeles.”

Tags: California, California Legislature, Democrats, elections, government, Jerry Brown, Katy Grimes, legislature, Republicans, Sacramento