The New Legislature

The New Legislature By Patrick Johnston The power blackouts of 2001 turned lights off all over California, but at the State Capitol the lights went on in the heads of new legislators. They realized that there was no point feeling insecure about lawmaking in the new era of term limits. After all, electricity deregulation was passed in 1996 by the leading state politicians from the “good old days” before term limits ousted them from office. New legislators had to wrestle with the energy crisis knowing that all the wisdom and certainty implied in a unanimous vote by the Legislature five years earlier counted for nothing now that utility bills were rising faster than dot com companies were sinking on the stock market. A remnant of old pros who had designed the deregulation law and a wave of legislative newcomers who inherited the mess now had to sort through causes, conse- quences, and remedies offered by a bewildering array of stakeholders. The energy crisis was the great leveler. It was the issue that deflated the conven- tional wisdom that the old order before term limits insured better lawmaking than the new order of constant change. To be sure, the institution of the California Legislature is markedly different in the wake of the 1990 voter-approved initiative that restricts Assembly members to 3 two-year terms and State Senators to 2 four-year terms. But it is not as easy to reach the conclu- sion that a term-limited Legislature functions better or worse than its predecessors that were unfettered by the ticking of the clock. Early Days In the context of California’s history, term limits represents only the most recent impact on the state’s law-making body. Congress admitted California as the 31st state of the Union in 1850. When elections were first held for the 16-member Senate (now 40) and 36-member Assembly (now 80), most candidates aligned themselves with either the Democratic Party or the Whig Party. The early legislative sessions were marked by turnover and instability among the members. Some resigned to take other positions in the new state government. Many legislators had come recently to California after serving in elective office in their home states. William Gwin, for example, had been a Congressman from Mississippi. He con- vinced his fellow solons to select him as one of the new state’s two U.S. Senators along with the legendary John C. Fremont. Gwin argued successfully that California should have a pro-slavery Senator in Washington to balance the abolitionist views of Fremont. The early days of the Legislature, meeting in San Jose, were characterized by contentious debate and considerable frustration as the new state emerged from the control of the U.S. Army and, before that, the rule of Spain and then Mexico. State Senate Fi- nance Committee Chairman Thomas Jefferson Green, who had served in the legislatures of North Carolina and Florida, invited his colleagues to imbibe at the end of each day thereby earning the first session the nickname, “the legislature of a thousand drinks.” As the state grew and the economy developed beyond the gold mining industry, the railroads were built and communities came to depend upon them as the preferred method of moving goods to market. Eventually the railroad titans manipulated both the Democratic and Republican parties to choose candidates for the Legislature that were friendly to their needs. By 1910 a coalition of reformers and farmers, resentful of the power of the railroad, combined to nominate and then elect Republican Hiram Johnson the Governor of California. Led by Johnson, the self-styled Progressives enacted a statewide direct pri- mary election system to skirt the power of party bosses. The individual candidate became more important than the party and its platform. Cross-filing, which permitted candidates to run on every party’s ticket, was instituted and further diminished the value of any particular party. In 1910 California was virtually a one-party state with the political cleavage sepa- rating conservative Republicans from progressive Republicans. Despite the population growth in Los Angeles and the San Francisco Bay Area, a 1926 initiative reapportioned the State Senate based on geography—giving the “cow counties” a significant over- representation. Assembly districts were drawn based on population. Partisanship was rare. There were no party caucuses. All members of each house selected members and chairmen of committees without regard to party affiliation. The 1930’s Great Depression and the Presidency of Franklin Roosevelt brought a surge of popularity to Democrats in California. State Senator Culbert Olson became the first Democratic Governor in the 20th century. Partisanship staged a brief flurry in the Assembly. By 1940 non-partisanship was back in the ascendancy with the election of moder- ate Republican Earl Warren. World War II muted political differences as the Legislature pursued patriotic themes including the dismissal of all Japanese-Americans from state jobs as a prelude to their internment in relocation camps. (In 1982 the Legislature offi- cially apologized for the hysteria-driven firings and appropriated $5,000 for each victim of the racist policy.) Insiders After the war, California boomed as a Mecca of opportunity. Many who had passed through the ports of San Diego and San Francisco as soldiers on their way to the Pacific 2 theatre and others who had come to work in the war industries, including many blacks from the rural South, made the Golden State their permanent home. The Legislature of the 1950’s still reflected the relative anonymity of earlier edi- tions. It was an institution of insiders. Sessions were short. Pay was for part-time work. Without staff or individual offices, members relied on lobbyists for information and amusement. In an era of relatively slow transportation, legislators lived in Sacramento hotels or bunked with fellow members in Spartan rental units. The low pay ($6,000 per year) and isolation from family bred a male social fraternity that depended upon the gen- erosity of the lobbying corps. Moose Milk and the Derby Club were eating and drinking sessions where lobbyists footed the bill for the regular opportunity to chat with lawmakers. The king of influence peddlers was liquor lobbyist Artie Samish who was commonly referred to as the “Boss of the Legislature” until he was prosecuted for federal tax eva- sion. In this clubby atmosphere veteran legislators initiated new members into the ritu- als of lawmaking. Committee chairmen (there were no women in the Senate and only an occasional widow of a former member in the Assembly) and key committee members from both parties would consult with lobbyists in the evening and vote on bills the next day. The voting procedure often amounted to the chairman announcing the fate of a bill without the presence or recorded vote of the committee members. What this process lacked in democratic transparency, it made up for in a certain efficiency. Pandering to particular constituencies was minimized. Members were not put on the spot for voting against popular but expensive or unwise bills. The unspoken premise was this: it is in the public’s interest for elected leaders to thrash out complicated issues without the excessive scrutiny of the public or the press and without fear of losing the next election. These insiders were a small elite of part-time lawmakers who were relatively insulated from what Founding Father James Madison termed “the hot temper of popular opinion.” Members of the Legislature had an odd little life that depended upon the camara- derie of fellow members, the munificence of lobbyists, and the silence of the press. Par- tisanship was less important than relationships with colleagues. The working press was at best tolerant of the Capitol’s culture or at worst was co-opted by a process that doled out tidbits of information and free drinks in exchange for reportorial discretion in the filing of their stories. Partisans California was changing by the end of the fifties. In 1958 Democrat Pat Brown was elected Governor. The Senate was still run by the “old bulls” on a conservative and bi-partisan basis. The Assembly, however, had started to split into partisan caucuses. Then came Jesse Unruh. Elected Speaker in 1960, Unruh transformed the office into a policy and political power center. He raised campaign funds aggressively from 3 special interests and doled them out judiciously to expand Democratic control of the house and create political dependency upon him. The Progressive era reforms that emasculated political parties allowed Unruh to establish the “caucus” party. Republicans soon followed suit. Competition at elections included challenges to incumbents. Legislative programs needed the Speaker’s blessing. Unruh allocated committee assignments and patronage staff on the basis of loyalty for Democrats and cooperation for Republicans. Lobbyists responded to this shift of power to the Speaker’s office by showering Unruh and his successors with large doses of campaign money. Even funds directed to other caucus members and candidates were often negotiated by the Speaker. Lobbyists, in turn, aimed their advocacy primarily at the leader. Unruh—and after him, Bob Moretti, Leo McCarthy, and Willie Brown—directed the course and outcome of policy- making as well. The cost of campaigns rose dramatically from the fifties to the eighties. In 1958 a total of $968,687 was spent on all Assembly campaigns. By 1988 that figure had grown to $57,177,745. Even in constant dollars the growth rate was 13 times greater over the 30-year period. The State Senate did not yield as quickly or as completely to control by the Presi- dent Pro Tempore. The house organizational structure conferred most authority on the 5-member Rules Committee and was less amenable to leadership fiat than the Assembly.

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