The tremors of term limits.

• Author: Katches, Mark

California voters approved term limits in 1990. This season some of the aftershocks are being felt.

Two days after California voters gave Democrats back an Assembly majority in the November elections, 43 newly elected members of the party met at Viscaya Restaurant, a swank gathering place situated in one of the only areas in the capital city that isn't a designated flood zone.

As new members arrived by taxicabs and rental cars, a befuddled press corps strained to put names with the faces. Democratic staffers chipped in, pointing out the unfamiliar lawmakers as they arrived one by one. That's Don Perata of Alameda County. That's Sally Havice from Los Angeles County, the aides whispered. Inside the restaurant in a private meeting room, it wasn't much different. Many of the politicians had never met each other, and all of them were required to wear name tags to help sort out the confusion. Of the 43 lawmakers in the room, 20 were freshmen.

The new Democrats elected as their leader 43-year-old Cruz Bustamante, a moderate Latino and the son of a barber, who represents a rural Fresno district. Bustamante, who has since become speaker, was one of the veterans of this crowd. He had served in the Legislature for all of three years.

All this was happening in the name of term limits. In 1990, voters approved a ballot initiative limiting their assembly members to three two-year terms. Now six years later, a new era has begun. The Nov. 5 election in the nation's most populous state was historic - because the voters finished what they started. All 80 members of the lower house serving in 1990 are gone, replaced by a new batch that includes more women and more Latinos.

Twenty-four lawmakers who were part of the class of 1990 were the last to be shown the door, including such fixtures of state politics as John Vasconcellos of Santa Clara, Richard Katz of Panorama City, Philip Isenberg of Sacramento and Tom Bates of Berkeley. Of the new class, 60 lawmakers have just two years or less of legislative experience in state politics. The number of Latino lawmakers has more than tripled in six years from four to 14. Most political observers believe that without the change in the law, Bustamante - whose three-year career has gone largely unnoticed - never would have risen so fast to become one of the most powerful players in California politics. The surge in Latino representation in the Democratic caucus gave him a strong base of support in his party on which to launch a campaign for speaker. He rounded up other votes by promising key committee assignments to many of the newer members of the Legislature. Instead of paying their dues and waiting years to hold a committee chairmanship, the new members were getting important leadership responsibilities doled out to them by Bustamante before they were even sworn in.

NO TIME FOR TRAINING

When the Legislature reconvened briefly one month later, Bustamante was officially elected the first Latino speaker in the state's history. Standing in the back of the crowded Assembly chambers was Willie L. Brown Jr., the man whose tight grip on state politics became a target of proponents of term limits. Brown, who was speaker for nearly 15 years, has moved on to become mayor of San Francisco - but not by choice.

"If it were not for term limits, I would have been buried right up there," Brown told reporters, pointing to the podium from which he used to preside. Brown toiled in the lower house for 16 years from 1964 until 1980 before he finally became speaker. That type of training ground is now gone. It will take at least a year to get a better measurement of term limits and the impact that inexperience will have on policy and on the way power is wielded.

Supporters of term limits say too much power was concentrated in too few places - especially the speakership - before the initiative was approved.

"Term limits is one method of helping to fracture, divide and dissipate that power," said Lewis K. Uhler, co-author of the term-limits initiative.

One thing is clear: California wanted change and got it. Bustamante has named several...