Rippon

California voters passed Proposition 140 in November 1990, and thereby limited the Legislature’s budget and imposed lifetime term limits and pension restrictions for state legislators and other state officers. (Legislature v. Eu (1991) 54 Cal.3d 492, 502, 506 [ 286 Cal.Rptr. 283 , 816 P.2d 1309 ] (Eu).) The purpose of the initiative was that incumbent advantages “ ‘discourage qualified candidates from seeking public office and create a class of career politicians, instead of the citizen representatives envisioned by the Founding Fathers.’ ” (Id. at p. 501.) In this appeal, appellants revisit a constitutional challenge to Proposition 140 raised shortly after its passage: they argue Proposition 140 revised the California Constitution and is therefore invalid.

Except for the pension restrictions, our Supreme Court and an en banc panel of the Ninth Circuit upheld the constitutionality of Proposition 140. ( Eu, supra, 54 Cal.3d 492 ; Bates v. Jones (9th Cir. 1997) 131 F.3d 843 (Bates).) In Eu, our high court concluded “the basic and fundamental structure of the Legislature as a representative branch of government is left substantially unchanged by Proposition 140. Term and…