[Aloha]

Compare the quality of legislation passed before term limits to after (the last real structural reforms to state government were before term limits), I remember the difference. The current system encourages "make a name for yourself than move on to bigger and better things" and prevents the legislature acting as a base of political power - that gets in the way of long term thinking.

To the rest of your comment - I think big tent parties are good, but not ones that require ideological fealty the way current parties do, you can't build a durable majority with left social issues, a weird mashup or left wing and right wing economics and "progressive" requirement that everyone hew to proper "optics".

That's a recipe for never fixing any of the actual problems, with the added benefit of giving your base and activists plenty of ideological wars that can never be won.

[dragonwriter]

> Compare the quality of legislation passed before term limits to after

After is generally better, at least than in an equal time period before, though I don't attribute it to term limits, which were a bad idea.

> the last real structural reforms to state government were before term limits

The last major structural reform to state government was when it was finally made modestly governable by the repeal of the supermajority budget requirement in 2010, 14 years after term limits applied to the Assembly (a little over two full turnovers forced by term limits), 12 years after they applied to the Senate (one full turnover and halfway through the next.)

The last major structural reforms of government administration (which may be more what you are thinking of, though of less practical effect) were a series under Schwarzenegger in 2005 (or so, not sure they all happened that year), still well after term limits.

[Aloha]

What did Schwarzenegger reform?

[zeruch]

He himself did not reform too much, but not for lack of tying. In the end one could easily argue that he helped mainline numerous ideas that had been previously flat out obstructed by the GOP: redistricting guidelines/gerrymandering (wanting to tae the districting process out of party hands altogether), environmental efforts (Global Warming Solutions Act), proposed marijuana legalization, opposed Bush IIs border fence initiatives..in a way he's very California: very immigrant, very Hollywood, very macho but a little hippy, weirdly contrarian and unapologetic about it.

He was not the most effective governor, but he also was not a destructive or fundamentally divisive one (yes he had soe hot points but I can't think of a single governor of this state who hasn't) and he certainly performed better than I thought he would.

[Aloha]

Yeah, that was more or less my point. He was a decent governor, but he didn't fix (or really attempt to fix) the structural issues in Sacramento, I do think reasonably highly about him. Though I voted to retain Davis, Davis lost his office because of how bad he is at retail politics.