State’s Term Limit Initiative Upheld by U.S. High Court : Politics: The justices refuse to hear an appeal by leading California legislators. Their decision clears the way for other states to remove career politicians.

WASHINGTON —  The Supreme Court on Monday dismissed the final legal challenge to the sweeping California term-limit initiative that will drive all of the state’s lawmakers from office over the next six years.

The court’s move clears the way for other states to remove career politicians from state capitals, and it may encourage similar efforts to oust veteran legislators from Congress.

Without commenting on the California law, the justices refused to hear an appeal filed by leading state legislators, including Assembly Speaker Willie Brown (D-San Francisco) and Senate President David A. Roberti (D-Los Angeles). They contended that the term limits violate the right of voters under the U.S. Constitution to cast a ballot for the candidates of their choice.

Reacting bitterly to the court’s action, Brown compared term limits to poll taxes, the once-common device used in the South to prevent blacks from voting. In 1990, advertisements promoting Proposition 140 term limits invited voters to “join me in giving Willie Brown the ‘boot.’ ”

In a statement issued Monday, the Assembly Speaker said “poll taxes were designed to limit choice. Term limits were designed to limit the choices at the polls. One wore a sheet and one didn’t.”

Gov. Pete Wilson, a Proposition 140 supporter, said he was pleased with the ruling and confident that the regular turnover of members would lead to “a healthier and, frankly, more responsive Legislature.”

Facing term limits, he said, a lawmaker will not be “so worried about keeping his seat and being a political survivor.” Rather, members will more likely be “people who have either had another career in business or labor or operating a farm, people who have done something else . . . (and are) more inclined to view it a public service.”

Supporters and critics agreed that the court’s action brought an end to Proposition 140 challenges.

“This is simply the end of the line for the people in the Legislature who feel they own the place,” said Lewis K. Uhler, president of the National Tax Limitation Committee based in Roseville, Calif., and a sponsor of the law.

Approved by voters in November, 1990, Proposition 140 limits Assembly members to six years in office and state senators to eight years. It also set an eight-year limit for an array of other state offices, including governor. It was written into the state Constitution after winning 52% of the vote.

With an anti-incumbent mood seeming to gain strength nationwide, activists said that term limits will be “the political reform of the ‘90s.” They predicted that as many as 10 other states could set career limits on elected officials this year.

“There is a tremendous groundswell out there,” said Paul Jacob, campaign director for U.S. Term Limits in Washington. Voters in Michigan, South Dakota and Wyoming will decide in November whether they want to limit the terms of all their lawmakers--state and federal.

Also, advocates are trying to place the issue on the ballot in Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Missouri, Ohio, Oregon, Utah and Washington, Jacob said.

California activists are gathering signatures for a proposed November ballot measure setting a similar term limit for members of Congress. By April 15, the backers must submit at least 400,000 signatures.

“We are doing 70,000 signatures a week and it looks good,” said Ted Costa of the People’s Advocate, the Sacramento-based group leading the initiative. “We’re probably going to qualify” for the ballot, he said.

Only Colorado has imposed term limits for members of Congress, and those limits have not been challenged in court. That law, approved in 1990, limits length in office to 12 years.

The high court’s action in the case (Legislature of the State of California vs. Eu, 91-1113) suggests that states can limit the terms of their lawmakers. However, it does not answer the question of whether states can impose similar restrictions on members of Congress.

The U.S. Constitution does not limit the terms of members of the House of Representatives or Senate. Many members over the years have held office for three decades or more. The senior member of the House, Rep. Jamie Whitten (D-Miss.) was first elected in 1941, a month before Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor.

Advocates of California term limits said they wanted to breathe new life into the Legislature by pushing out entrenched incumbents. Veteran lawmakers use the powers of their office, including the ability to raise campaign war chests, to frighten off competitors and hold office as long as they choose, proponents of term limits believe. The ballot initiative promised to rid Sacramento of “a class of career politicians.”

Applauding the decision, Uhler said that it would “change the attitude of the people who get elected. They know they will be there on a temporary basis, not that they have been given a free title to the Capitol.”

But critics, including attorneys for the veteran lawmakers, said that voters should not be denied the right to cast ballots for popular and effective legislators.

Joseph Remcho, the attorney who filed the appeal on behalf of Brown and other lawmakers, questioned the wisdom of throwing experienced lawmakers out of office and turning over management of the $60-billion-a-year state government “to a lot of amateurs and part-timers.”

In October, the state Supreme Court on a 6-1 vote upheld the term limits set by Proposition 140. The state justices said they would defer to the wishes of California’s voters who made clear that they wanted to throw out of office “an entrenched, dynastic legislative bureaucracy.”

In addition to term limitations, Proposition 140 had two other key provisions. The state court struck down the portion of the measure that abolished the incumbent legislators’ pension system.

But the court upheld a 38% cut in the Legislature’s operating budget mandated by Proposition 140. Last week, in an apparent retaliation, an Assembly subcommittee proposed a 38% budget cut on the state high court.

Times staff writer Carl Ingram contributed to this report.

BACKGROUND

Under Proposition 140, members of the state Assembly may serve a maximum of three two-year terms, as of November, 1990. All current members of the lower house in Sacramento must leave office after 1996. State senators may serve a maximum of two four-year terms. Current members will have to leave the Senate after 1998. Once they have served the maximum term, members of the Assembly and Senate may never run again for those offices, but they can run for seats in the other legislative house or in Congress. Proposition 140 also imposed a limit of two four-year terms on other statewide elected officials, including the governor, the attorney general, the controller, the treasurer and the superintendent of public instruction. The office of state insurance commissioner is exempt from the limits because it had not been created when Proposition 140 was drawn up.

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