California State Legislature: Term limits shift balance of power to special interests

State Capitol of California

Link to July 18 San Jose Mercury News article.

Excerpt: So it goes in Sacramento, where state lawmakers, lacking experience in an era of term limits, increasingly depend on outside interests for their success. The Mercury News reported last week that sponsored bills made up more than a third of the proposed laws introduced in the Legislature in 2007-08, the most recently completed session.

The paper's analysis also helps explain the heady combination of pressures and enticements that lead legislators to rely so heavily on sponsored bills, favoring private interests rather than the public interest they were sent to Sacramento to serve. The analysis — including a review of every bill introduced in 2007 and 2008, inspection of state campaign finance reports and interviews with dozens of legislators, staff members, lobbyists and outside experts — reveals:

Bill sponsors are big contributors. The Mercury News identified $1.2 million in the last session contributed by sponsors to the campaigns of legislators who introduced their bills.

The legislators with the most sponsored bills collect the most contributions. Of the 14 legislators in the 2007-08 session who received $20,000 or more from private interest sponsors, 13 carried five or more private interest bills in that session.

New lawmakers carry the most sponsored bills. During the 2007-08 session, sponsored bills made up a greater percentage of the bills introduced by freshman legislators than by those with more tenure. And the bills are more prevalent in the Assembly, where legislators are less experienced, than in the Senate.

Sponsorship has thrived since term limits took hold. In the 1993-94 session, just before the state's term-limits law took effect, sponsored bills made up 30 percent of all bills introduced. In the most recent session, that percentage jumped to 39 percent.