Dan Walters' Capitol Q&A

Question: On Nov. 29 you wrote, "I would personally prefer that all three branches of higher education be merged into one seamless system answerable to a single oversight board." Are you sure that's such a good idea, especially considering distribution of funds? If the 11 percent allocated by Proposition 98 were moved into a combined UC-CSU-CC system and combined with the current higher ed budget, would the CC's receive 70 percent of the budget because the CC's have 70 percent of the students enrolled in higher education? Heck, the CC's never received the 11 percent of the Proposition 98 funds.
-- Lin Fraser, Sacramento

Answer: Were the CCs part of the state's overall system, though, perhaps their stature would increase and the board of the combined system would feel responsible for the CCs' financial well-being, rather than what happens as a result of their hybrid, near-fish-nor-fowl status now.
-- Dan Walters

Question: What do you see are the positives and negatives of term limits? Do you think lobbyists and the more experienced staff have too much power? Do you think "super staffers" know what they are doing or has power corrupted them? Have you observed that term limits has brought to the Capitol young, campaign staffers who believe that if they read a one-page document that says what they want to hear they can make public policy?
-- Mike M., Sacramento

Answer: There are positives and negatives - breaking up the somewhat corruptoligarchy that controlled the Capitol and bringing more cultural diversity to the Legislature are positives, but shortening the Legislature's attention span and and losing both institutional knowledge and staff expertise are negatives. It is, however, difficult to separate the effects of term limits from those of gerrymandered legislative districts. I would say that the overall impact of term limits is about 50-50 plus and minus. The Legislature was dysfunctional before term limits and remains so because its problems are more deeply structural than any one-shot approach such as term limits can solve.
-- Dan Walters