Arnold Backs Term Limits

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, in a change of course, said this week he is endorsing Proposition 93, a February ballot measure that would modify California’s term limits law.

While reducing the total time lawmakers could serve in Sacramento to 12 years from 14, the measure also would allow lawmakers to serve their entire tenure in one house, eliminating the current limit of eight years in the Senate and six in the Assembly.

Therefore, if the ballot measure passes, Senate President pro tempore Don Perata, D-Oakland, and Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez, D-Los Angeles, would be likely to continue in those offices.

Both men are in safe seats and will be termed out of office this year if Proposition 93 is not approved.

Nunez and Perata are familiar negotiating partners for the Republican governor, who is trying to enact a sweeping health insurance reform package and who also must face a projected $14.4 billion deficit for fiscal 2009.

Until this week, Schwarzenegger had said term limits reform should be part of a package that includes reform of the redistricting process, which has been used by lawmakers of both parties to gerrymander safe seats.

Such redistricting reform failed to materialize, but Schwarzenegger said he would support the term limits measure anyway.

“Proposition 93 is good public policy irrespective of redistricting, and on its own, it will go a long way toward improving the quality of state government in California,” he said in a Los Angeles Times opinion piece in which he announced the endorsement.

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