When California voters rejected five measures on the May 19 special election ballot, but passed a sixth measure that barred legislative pay raises in budget deficit years, the message to Sacramento was clear: Voters did not like what Sacramento had to offer.

I thought that the 1990 term-limit measure that restricted Assembly members to three two-year terms and state Senate members to two four-year terms would produce better representation in Sacramento. I thought term-limited lawmakers would pass better budgets. Instead, legislators have passed budgets later than ever and more gimmicky each year -- until gimmicks no longer could hide the gaps between income and spending.

The state budget mess has prompted me to rethink term limits. Maybe it's not a plus when roughly one-third of Assembly members and one-half of state senators are no longer eligible for re-election.

State Sen. Abel Maldonado, R-Santa Maria, believes the answer is for voters to pass his open-primary measure on the June 2010 ballot. Primary a la Maldonado would pit the top two vote-getters -- even members of the same party -- against each other in the general election.

Under the system now, Maldonado explained, Democrats have to woo the hard left to win their party's primary; Republicans likewise have to win the hard right -- with the result that most lawmakers are "working very hard making 13 percent of their electorate happy." But if voters chose between the top two vote-getters, lawmakers would have to reach out to all constituents, not just to their party's overly influential base.

I called Bob Stern of the Center for Governmental Studies -- my go-to guy on good government -- and he suggested that I rethink my rethinking on term limits. Stern referred me to his center's 2007 report "Termed Out: Reforming California's Legislative Term Limits." It found that term limits brought fresh faces to Sacramento and reduced the potential for corruption -- but suggested longer term limits to enhance legislators' expertise. Continued...