Dan Walter’s “Pop” Analysis Fails As History

[courtesy of California Progress Report]

By Bill Cavala
A veteran of over 30 years in Sacramento

In his column today, Dan Walters puts on his “pop” history hat. In a review of Bill Boyarsky’s book on Jesse Unruh, Walters is critical. Walters writes, “Unruh’s historic overhaul of the legislative process…led to the Legislature’s later dysfunction”.

Now that’s a startling statement. A sweeping generalization. What evidence does “pop” historian Walters have for asserting a degeneration in the Legislature after Unruh? And, if true, what evidence links that “later dysfunction” to Unruh’s reforms?

The “reform” was a full-time Legislature which proponents argued would produce a better, more responsive institution. “Initially the promises appeared to be coming through”, Walters concedes, but the moment was short lived BECAUSE:

1. The legislature saw a huge turnover of membership thanks to a court ordered redistricting plan that ignored incumbent’s preferences;

2. A Democratic wave – a response to Vietnam and Watergate

3. These new (Democratic) legislators were careerists drawn from Legislative staff;

4. These Democratic “careerists” elected Willie Brown, “whose tenure was marked by policy gridlock and scandal, culminating in a federal “sting” investigation.

5. Voters reacted to the “scandal” by imposing legislative term limits.

Well let’s see. First, the turnover due to redistricting in 1973 was no greater (and in fact less) than similar turnover resulting from redistricting in the subsequent two decades.

Second, I am aware of no study indicating that recruitment of legislators from staff was greater in the 1970’s than in the 1960’s or subsequently. Or that former Legislative staff were “more interested in careers than policy”. Walters may think so. He adduces no evidence. Was Bill Lockyer (a former staffer) less interested in policy than David Roberti?