Interviews and informal conversations with a number of the state Capitol’s newest legislators and their observers think there is a sign that this class — the largest in the Legislature since 1966 — may be making the most of the governance and electoral changes recently enacted by voters.
“You’re seeing movement away from that gridlock, movement away from that inability to deal with the state’s most basic issues,” said Steve Boilard, executive director of CSU Sacramento’s Center for California Studies.
Since 2010, voters have created an independent commission to draw legislative districts; enacted new primary rules that deemphasize the role of political parties; made it easier to pass state budgets by lowering the legislative vote threshold; and reconfigured legislative term limits, allowing lawmakers to serve up to 12 years in a single house.
That last change — via 2012′s Proposition 28 — means this freshman class could gain more experience, and power, than any since the enactment of term limits in 1990.
“I think we all have that long term kind of thinking in our heads of, ‘Look, you’re going to have to work together for a long time, so make it work,’” said Assemblymember Melissa Melendez (R-Lake Elsinore).