{"id":2687,"date":"2003-01-04T17:50:21","date_gmt":"2003-01-05T00:50:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mossback.org\/archives\/2003\/01\/consequences-of-term-limits\/"},"modified":"2003-01-04T17:50:21","modified_gmt":"2003-01-05T00:50:21","slug":"consequences-of-term-limits","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bennett.com\/blog\/2003\/01\/04\/consequences-of-term-limits\/","title":{"rendered":"Consequences of term limits"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t\t\tLobbyists (and former legislators) Phil Isenberg and Patrick Johnston are helping Gov. Davis with the budget, and purists are in an uproar:<\/a><\/p>\n

\nThe special access given to Phil Isenberg and Patrick Johnston sparked criticism from consumer activists and political reform advocates, who said neither man should be allowed to take part in closed-door budget talks where they can quietly help their clients and shape state policy without public scrutiny.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Welcome to the consequences of term limits. In the Golden Age of state government, Isenberg chaired the Assembly Judiciary Committee and was an expert on the actual consequences of many aspects of subtle public policy, while Johnston ran the Senate Appropriations Committee and understood the cost of everything. Term limits forced these two out of the legislature, but it didn’t eliminate the need for their expertise. So they’ve stayed in the Sacramento orbit in the only good-paying job in town, lobbyist, continuing to lend expertise as it’s needed. <\/p>\n

Opponents of term limits predicted that it would increase the power of legislative staff and lobbyists, because these folks don’t get run out of town after a brief tour of six years in the Assembly or eight in the Senate, and this is just exactly what’s happened. Consumer activists and reform advocates who complain about this display a remarkable ignorance of the consequences of their own deeds, of course.<\/p>\n

And it’s a damn good thing these guys are still around – an Assemblyman with only four years under his or her belt can’t begin to appreciate the complexity of state government and its interaction with social policy and the economy.\t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Lobbyists (and former legislators) Phil Isenberg and Patrick Johnston are helping Gov. Davis with the budget, and purists are in an uproar: The special access given to Phil Isenberg and Patrick Johnston sparked criticism from consumer activists and political reform advocates, who said neither man should be allowed to take part in closed-door budget talks … Continue reading “Consequences of term limits”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2687","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pbifyw-Hl","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bennett.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2687","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bennett.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bennett.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bennett.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bennett.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2687"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bennett.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2687\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bennett.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2687"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bennett.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2687"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bennett.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2687"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}