Sometimes, legislators seem to be pleading that they be put out of the misery of having to do the hard work of running the state of California.

A toddler tragically dies after swallowing a pushpin, and a lawmaker carries a bill to ban pushpins in preschools. A dog groomer maims a pooch named Lucy, and a legislator introduces Lucy's Law to license people who bathe and brush dogs.

Many legislators do serious work. But many others spend too little time trying to fix the state and too much time crowing about bills that are little more than press releases intended to grab attention.

Enter Shannon Grove.

"Special interests run the building, and it's truly not a Legislature by the people, of the people, for the people," Grove said last week when she met with The Bee's Capitol Bureau to sell the latest elixir intended to cure California's ills.

Grove is a first-term Republican legislator from Bakersfield who is gathering signatures for a ballot measure to create a part-time Legislature. She proposes to have legislators sit three months a year, rather than the current nine months, and cut pay to $18,000 from the current $95,000.

It sounds so easy, so simple. Certainly, Grove is getting her share of attention, something she has failed to do during her first 14 months as a legislator. But despite the surface appeal, Californians aren't sure it would fix the problem.

The latest Field Poll confirms that Californians are disgusted with the Legislature. But only 39 percent of the voters favor making the Legislature part time. And Republican lawmakers, already struggling for relevance, are skeptical if not outright opposed.

"It would make the situation worse," Orange County Republican Assemblyman Chris Norby told me. "Making the Legislature part time would only make the judicial branch and executive more powerful, and make the bureaucracy and the lobbyists more powerful."

Senate Republican Leader Bob Huff tried to imagine who would run for a job that would pay $18,000 a year: "It favors lawyers. It favors wealthy people. It favors union employees who would be getting paid by their union and holding dual roles."

Or, perhaps, people like Shannon Grove.

It makes perfect sense that Grove would promote the initiative to create a part-time Legislature. She's hasn't left a footprint in her year-plus in office.

Grove aligns herself with the Legislature's conservatives. She showed up, for example, at a 2011 news conference with Assemblyman Tim Donnelly and Russell Pearce, the Arizona state senator who was recalled last year, as Donnelly touted his bill to make it a state crime to be an illegal immigrant, much like the bill that Pearce pushed in Arizona.

If her Bakersfield constituents expected that she would deliver much of anything, they are out of luck. Since getting elected, Grove has introduced 19 bills and resolutions. Sixteen have yet to be heard in a committee. Three others died in their first committee.

She introduced bills to register junk dealers, abolish state boards and expand the legislative Open Records Act. She introduced a bill to create an enterprise zone in Kern County to give tax breaks to businesses locating at the Mojave Air and Space Port. All died on arrival.

As she answered questions from the Capitol Bureau's veterans, Grove seemed not to fully grasp the legislative process. "We truly do work part time right now," she said.

Grove may come across as a neophyte, but her political operation is anything but. Her campaign consultant, Mark Abernathy, is the dominant political strategist in Bakersfield.

Abernathy represented former U.S. Rep. Bill Thomas, a powerful Republican known for delivering pork to his district, and currently represents Thomas' protégé, Rep. Kevin McCarthy, who is House whip, the third highest ranking member of the House leadership.

Grove's chief of staff is Cathy Abernathy, Mark's wife. Cathy Abernathy was Thomas' chief of staff during much of his congressional tenure, and became a lobbyist in 2001 when Thomas became chair of the House Ways and Means Committee.

She represented several clients including drug companies and General Electric, and received her last lobby payment in early 2010, $70,000, from Altria, the world's largest cigarette manufacturer.

To promote the initiative, Grove has teamed up with veteran initiative promoter Ted Costa, another client of Mark Abernathy. However, Cathy Abernathy told me that her husband will accept no payments for managing the part-time Legislature campaign beyond taking reimbursement for his expenses.

"This is that important," Cathy Abernathy said, blaming much of the problems in the Legislature on the influence of public employee unions.

Abernathy is right. The Legislature is diminished, though her prescription would kill the legislative branch in California.

The Legislature has been damaged by term limits, an idea promoted by Costa back in 1990, undermined by ambitions of the lawmakers who are forever seeking the next office and overly influenced by moneyed interests.

This year, however, the situation could start to change. There's a chance to start electing legislators who are less partisan, because of two voter-approved fixes, the open primary system and district lines drawn by an independent commission.

A part-time Legislature might seem like another good idea. It is ready made for populist sound bites, perfect for 30-second commercials. But California has many problems. A Legislature of part-time back-benchers isn't the answer, especially not ones influenced if not controlled by lobbyists, consultants and promoters.

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