Richard Alarcon: Good Riddance and Hello

Quoted in this article in LA Weekly.

Jessica Levinson, a professor at Loyola Law School, views the legacy of term limits in California as a game of "musical chairs" played by politicians whose desire is to hold long-running and powerful jobs.

Alarcon's ability to repeatedly jump around, while fresh-faced candidates who run against him are repeatedly rejected by voters, "sounds schizophrenic," Levinson says. "But it also makes sense. In the abstract, voters want new blood and think one way to do it is to legally mandate that politicians can only stay so long.

"But by the same token, incumbents wield so much power in name recognition, and they typically out-raise challengers in campaign fundraising, that, as anti-incumbent as we [Californians] are, we often vote for the person we know."