The Term-Limits Tango

Spring has yet to turn to summer, but already the political season is heating up as familiar faces size up the prospects for new jobs. One says he’ll run. One says he won’t. One says he hasn’t decided.

Former Democratic Assemblyman Richard Katz is eyeing the Valley seat of current Democratic state Sen. Herschel Rosenthal. Katz, forced out of his Assembly job last year by term limits, thinks he’d be a good successor to Rosenthal, who also faces losing his office to term limits.

But perennial GOP hopeful Rich Sybert says he won’t make a third attempt for the congressional seat he twice lost to Democrats. Instead, he’s moving to Ventura County, he says, to be closer to his business. But it’s no secret that he might be interested in the seat of Republican Assemblyman Nao Takasugi of Oxnard, also a potential casualty of term limits.

And although he’s interested, Los Angeles City Councilman Richard Alarcon has yet to decide if he, too, will run for Rosenthal’s seat--a choice that would pit him against longtime friend Katz.

Got it all straight? Here’s the catch: If state and federal courts rule voter-approved term limits unconstitutional, well, all bets are off because Rosenthal and Takasugi could run again. Ah, politics.