As delegates arrive today for the California Republican Party’s Convention in Sacramento, it will be the hope of those gathered that there will be no special election for the purposes of asking the voters to (once again) reject tax increases. A look back will reveal that the last seven times that California voters have had a chance to do so, they have rejected higher taxes.
That having been said, there is still an unfortunate possibly that some deal gets struck and we end up with a special election for June of this year. That said, in addition to anything that would be placed on the special election ballot as part of an ill-advised deal, there are two ballot measures that have already been qualified and will appear on the state’s next ballot. One is a tobacco tax measure. The other is a measure championed by the AFL-CIO to weaken California’s term-limits law.
This weekend the CRP has an opportunity to take positions on ballot measures, and so I have teamed up with Lew Uhler, President of the National Tax Limitation Committee, to introduce the following resolution to the CRP’s Initiatives Committee for consideration, the passage of which would put the record in opposition to the term-limits weakening measure.
Both Uhler and I are members of the Initiatives Committee…
OPPOSING THE TERM LIMITS WEAKENING MEASURE KNOWN AS THE “CALIFORNIA TERM LIMITS INITIATIVE” THAT WILL APPEAR ON THE NEXT STATEWIDE BALLOT
Submitted by Lew Uhler and Jon Fleischman
Whereas, the California Republican Party has a rich tradition of supporting term limits for state legislators, starting with its support of Proposition 140, passed by voters in 1990, which put into place very reasonable limits on the allowable terms an individual may serve in either chamber of the legislature — two four-year terms in the State Senate and three two-year terms in the State Assembly; and,
Whereas, the California Republican Party opposed Proposition 45 in 2002 and Proposition 93 in 2008, both of which sought to weaken California’s legislative term limits; and,
Whereas, the California Republican Party supports term limits because we believe that the legislature should not be a home for career politicians, but a place where citizens go for fixed periods of time as lawmakers, and then return to their local community to live under the laws that they created; and,
Whereas, the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor (AFL-CIO) has sponsored a ballot measure that has qualified to appear on the next statewide ballot that would substantially weaken California’s current legislative term limits by allowing an individual to serve in the State Senate for up to three four-year terms and in the State Assembly for six two-year terms; and,
Whereas, the AFL-CIO will seek to mislead voters into thinking that this measure represents a strengthening of term limits because it lowers by two-years the overall service that politicians could seek if they served full terms in both legislative chambers, when the reality is that most legislators serve in only one chamber of the legislature; and,
Whereas, despite language in the ballot measure to the contrary, there are significant legal questions about whether or not increasing years terms of service in the Legislature would then allow current and former legislators to be eligible for additional terms in office;
Therefore, be it resolved that the California Republican Party hereby opposes the "California Term Limits Initiative" that is scheduled to appear on the next statewide ballot.