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Political columnist George Skelton has covered government and politics for The Times since 1974.
Through the years he has been a political writer in Los Angeles, Sacramento bureau chief and White House correspondent. He has written a column on Sacramento politics, "Capitol Journal," since 1993. Prior to joining The Times, he was the Sacramento bureau manager for United Press International. His other jobs include political writer for The Sacramento Union, state capital writer and sports writer for United Press International, and local government reporter for the Sunnyvale (Calif.) Daily Standard. He received a bachelor's degree in journalism in 1959 from San Jose State College in San Jose, Calif. A Santa Barbara native, he is married and has three daughters. Capitol Journal
Threatened with mass demotion, California lawmakers finally focusThe new Committee on Improving State Government gets an all-day earful from experts. Advice includes forgoing useless or inane bills and making tougher spending decisions.
From Sacramento --
At least some legislators get it. They get that they're essentially dysfunctional -- that voters look down on them as lower than slugs.
Actually, I suspect, every California legislator gets it. They live the failures, read the polls, hear the voices. FOR THE RECORD: Term limits: George Skelton's column in Monday's Section A about reforming the process of lawmaking in Sacramento said the maximum service allowed in the Assembly is six two-year terms. The maximum allowed is three two-year terms. — The voices were firm and frank last week at the inaugural meeting of a two-house, 20-member Committee on Improving State Government. Those legislators certainly had gotten it by the end of an all-day earful of lecturing by invited government experts. The committee's task is to recommend how best to reform the process of lawmaking. Start by not wasting so much time passing so many frivolous laws, exhorted state Treasurer Bill Lockyer, a former attorney general and longtime state legislator who was Senate leader. "There's too much junk," Democrat Lockyer told the committee members, raising his voice. "I'm sorry, but two-thirds of the bills I see come out of the Assembly, if they never saw the light of day, God bless it. . . . Just stop it! Just stop it! . . . Just say 'No.' " Committee chairmen can't be counted on to weed out the hare-brained bills, Lockyer added, because "everyone's running for [Assembly] speaker. So every committee chairman is going to be too nice to whiners." And nonpartisan Legislative Analyst Mac Taylor, talking about spending bills, admonished his bosses: "You have to get people mad at you. You have to say 'No.' " "People" includes colleagues and contributors. The Legislature does pass too many bills -- some are attention-grabbers, others are favors for special interests or sought by local folks -- but the number has been steadily declining. This year, 953 bills were passed, roughly half the volume when Ronald Reagan was governor. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed 696 and vetoed 257. Legislative leaders created the reform committee for two basic reasons. One is only whispered about. It's the threat of mass demotion. There's a proposed ballot initiative to reduce the full-time Legislature to part-time status, cutting members' salaries in half. That wouldn't be reform, only public retribution. The part-time movement is struggling. But lawmakers are responding to the threat, trying to show voters that they can reform themselves. |
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