Saunders on Prop 93

The San Francisco Chronicle's, Debra Saunders, does a good job of taking on Prop 93, the supposed term limits reform initiative that will be on the ballot next month.

About the only thing I'd take issue with is her supposition at the beginning that without term limits we wouldn't have a 14 billion dollar deficit now.

Lawmakers spent all the revenues (and more) during the dot- com boom of the early 2000s. That's what ended up giving us the first big billions of dollars deficit. The state legislature back then was filled, for the most part, with veteran lawmakers. Term limits had been passed back then, but hadn't taken effect yet, or so I read somewhere.

There's something to be said for institutional memory and a good case can be made against term limits, but it's hard for me to believe we have a 14 billion dollar budget shortfall because of term limits.