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California's Third House

By Matt Caruso
Posted on Mon Jul 24, 2006 at 03:34:05 PM EST

In California, the fine line between government and lobbying is being blurred by a legislative staff migration. California's lobbying corps, caustically referred to as the Third House, is being led by experienced legislative staffers that no longer work in government. Jordan Rau reports in the Los Angeles Times:

The staff migration -- a repercussion of term limits passed in 1990 -- has strengthened the influence of interest groups in crafting laws but weakened lawmakers' ability to obtain the objective advice and institutional knowledge that once made California's Capitol a model for other states, according to many lawmakers, lobbyists and Sacramento veterans from both parties.

Lobbyists can earn double or more what can be made on the public payroll while working on the same legislation they researched as staffers. UC San Diego Professor Thad Kousser says that this is an unwanted effect of term limits giving interest groups "a much more active role in actually drafting the legislation, negotiating the amendments."

There is a one year "cooling off" period in which former staffers have to wait to join a lobbying firm. Nevertheless, the smooth transition from staffer to lobbyist compromises the legislative process because staffers may effectively parlay their job in government into a lucrative career. Of course, this is nothing new, or even unique. Regardless, this is yet another example of the bond between the moneyed interest and government, which is a terrifying connection indeed.


Tags: california, in the states, term limits, lobbying, ethics (all tags)


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California's Third House :: 3 Comments

Proposed fixes?

Matt, it would seem to me that term limits are a big Catch-22.

Without them, we could have stagnant bodies of incumbents who run time and time again, using the tendency of United States voters to overwhelmingly elect incumbents to their advantage. Obviously the advantage of incumbents could be at least partially mitigated by clean elections laws and publicly financed campaigns. However, the old problem still exists: Challengers can be derided for a lack of experience in governance, and they can't get that experience without being there in the first place... yet another Catch-22.

However, with term limits in place, I can definitely see the problems you have stated here coming back to bite us. Ex-legislators who have built up a power base and have friends still in government can wait a whopping 1-year to relax, play golf, and write their memoirs; then they head to the California equivelent of K-Street and run the government from the sidelines without the same kinds of oversight (no matter how limited) provided for in elected government.

The simple answer here seems to fix all of our issues: rather than removing term limits, just get rid of money in politics through publicly financed campaigns, and provide for more strict controls over donations and spending within public offices.

So... any other propsed fixes to this SNAFU? Sorry, once I use one Heller reference, I guess I just get carried away ;)

Do you think that doing away with term limits will help mitigate the issue? Why?

by jparis on Mon Jul 24, 2006 at 04:12:59 PM EST


Public Financing

I think that you are right that public financing would limit the influence of special interest money. The revolving door of staffer to lobbyist and so on would be hampered by satiating the constant need to acquire campaign funds.

Without having given it much thought, I have verbally supported term limits. I posted both term limit blogs yesterday because the newspaper articles raised questions that had not before occurred to me. In theory, I still support term limits because of the propensity for officials to serve eternal terms (e.g. Robert C. Byrd and Carl Trumbull Hayden). However, I am beginning to think that term limits effectively fuel the lobbyist-staffer merry-go-round. I guess the answer lies is finding a happy medium, which is something that is difficult to do. Ask Yossarian.

by Matt Caruso on Tue Jul 25, 2006 at 11:18:04 AM EST
[ Parent ]


Not to be a dittohead, but...

Agreed on pretty much all counts.

Reasonable term limits are still a neccessity imho, to prevent folks like Byrd or Strom Thurmond (rest his soul) from serving out what seem to be life terms in the Senate.

Just pulling a random number out of my head, 18 years would seem to be a good number to me for national Senators... almost 2 decades is alot of potential change, and that would include 2 successful re-election bids. Not so sure on state senator terms, but I'm in favor of terms between 4-6 years anyways. The more often an elected official is forced to run (say, every 2 years), the more their office becomes about campaigning and not governing.

by jparis on Tue Jul 25, 2006 at 01:18:51 PM EST
[ Parent ]

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