The Los Angeles Times from Los Angeles, California • Page 45

LOS ANGELES TIMES WEDNESDAY, MAY 7, 1997 B9 Commentary PERSPECTIVE ON TERM UMITS This 'Reform' Assures a Do-Little Legislature lPill YOU CAME HERE A5 A 14-YEAR-OLD HE'5 VERY BABYSITTER, N55, AND MY NEPHEW Los Angeles Times Syndicate JEFF DANZIGER, New York Uncle Teddy steps in. Statutory Rape Is an Outdated Concept the legislative branch as well as the other branches of state government. However, the commission also found Proposition 140's limits on terms too restrictive. The commission held that three two-year terms in the Assembly and two four-year terms in the Senate are insufficient to produce an effective legislative body, one capable of dealing with the state's pressing problems. At its best, lawmaking is the art of reconciling differing opinions in full view of the public.

This process is supposed to take time, and the time we have given legislators is simply too short. Of 22 states that limit terms, California's terms are among the shortest. The commission concluded that the shortness of time available for service has resulted in significant instability within the Legislature. Linda R. Cohen, a UC Irvine economics professor, produced a startling statistic that helped convince the commission members that they were on the right path.

"In the long run," she wrote in an article, "the share of Assembly members serving their first two years will always exceed one-third and is likely to approach one-half." To put the numbers in perspective: The Assembly has 27 standing (permanent) policy committees. Under close partisan division, as currently exists in the Legislature, if the majority party wants to keep control, some freshmen will chair important committees from their first day in Sacramento. The commission recommended that legislative terms be amended so legislators could serve three four-year terms. The terms would be staggered so that one-half of each house would stand for election every two years. The new term limits would take effect prospectively, so that no sitting legislator would' benefit from (be eligible for) the longer terms.

Having Assembly and Senate members serving the same number of years is not a new idea. Four states have the same length of service in both houses of their legislature. Staggering the terms would result in a senator or assembly-member standing for election in each district every two years. Lengthening the terms of office would bring greater stability to the Legislature and still maintain the voters' ability to change a representative every two years. This recommendation would improve accountability by bringing increased stability to the institution through longer terms of office while maintaining the connection between citizens and their representatives.

Bill llauck, jormer chairman of the California Constitution Revision Commission, is president of the California Business Roundtable. Fred Silva, former executive secretary of the commission, is a visiting policy analyst with the Public Policy Institute of California. Extend the length of service just a few years to allow for development of effective as well as responsive government. By BILL HAUCK and FRED SUVA Whether we like it or not, it's time to review California's term limits system. A federal court has ruled that the state's term limit law is unconstitutional.

The judge pointed specifically to the provision that bans a legislator from running for an office after serving the allowable number of terms. The decision has been stayed and no doubt will make its way to the U.S. Supreme Court. In 1990, the voters approved Proposition 140, which limited the terms of legislators to three two-year terms in the Assembly and two four-year terms in the Senate. The measure also limited the governor and 10 other elected officials to two four-year terms.

Proposition 140 included a lifetime ban on running for the same office after all of the terms were served. One of the objectives of the initiative was to end "careerism" in the Legislature. This system allowed a legislator to go virtually unchallenged by drawing legislative districts that benefited incumbents and by maintaining a campaign finance system that gave advantage to incumbents. Arguably, the voters did not intend to establish a Legislature that had no continuity in the lawmaking process or that had such a high turnover that nothing would get done. The Assembly is a good case in point.

Of its 80 members, 67 have been elected since 1994; 30 of them in 1996. This may account, at least in part, for very little being accomplished thus far in the legislative session that began in January. The California Constitution Revision Commission is the only group that has reviewed term limits. The 23-member commission was established in 1994 to, among other things, examine the structure of state government and propose modifications to increase accountability, efficiency and effectiveness. The commission studied a wide range of activities of state and local government and made its recommendations to the Legislature last spring.

A majority of the commission concluded that there is a rationale for limiting terms. The voters should be able to make adjustments in the operation of Justice: If a 16-year-old can choose abortion, she should be able to choose to have sex. By ALAN M. DERSHOWITZ Although the most recent survey shows a slight decrease in teenage sex in the United States, it confirms the reality that the crime of statutory rape is rampant. According to the National Survey of Family Growth, nearly one-quarter of the women surveyed said they had sex before their 15th birthday.

An additional 16.5 said they were between 15 and 16, and another 16.7 said they were between 16 and 17. Every state makes it a serious crime for anyone to have sex with another person below a given age. The age of consent varies from state to state. In some it is as high as 18, while in others it is as low as 14. Some jurisdictions mitigate the crime if the perpetrator is close in age to the victim, while others do not.

This is all theoretical, of course, since very few statutory rape charges actually are brought. The laws, however, remain on the books, poised to be used selectively in certain kinds of high visibility cases. Recently, for example, an 18-year-old Wisconsin high school senior was prosecuted after he got his 15-year-old girlfriend pregnant and then offered to marry her. He faces 40 years in prison and a lifetime requirement that he register as a sex offender. somewhat arbitrary.

And yet a line must be drawn. Nor would it be practical to have a cutoff based on individual maturity rather than age, since maturity is so subjective a criterion. Moreover, puberty is apparently arriving earlier, particularly among some ethnic groups. Based on the demographic criteria, the age of consent should be lowered. It certainly should not be as high as 17 or 16.

Reasonable people can disagree over whether it should be as low as 14. Fifteen would seem like an appropriate compromise. Perhaps there should be staircasing below 15 with the penalty increasing inversely with the age of the victim. There may even be constitutional limitations on making the age of consent too high. The Supreme Court has suggested, in the abortion context, that young women do have reproductive rights at a certain, unspecified age.

There are obvious differences between the right to choose whether to terminate an unwanted pregnancy and the right to have sex at all. The former requires a tragic choice between two difficult outcomes for a teenager, whereas the latter includes the preferred option at least, for young teenagers of abstinence. But the Supreme Court's recognition of a young woman's rights to choose abortion without interference from her parents or the state suggests a degree of autonomy that seems inconsistent with making it a felony to have sex with a mature, consenting 16-year-old. Alan M. Dcrshowitz teaches at Harvard Law School and writes a syndicated column.

The high visibility case that has most recently put the statutory rape laws in the headlines is the allegation that Michael Kennedy son of Robert and nephew of John had an affair with his children's babysitter, who is now a 19-year-old college student. There is no hard evidence that there was a sexual encounter between Kennedy and the babysitter before her 16th birthday. In the absence of such evidence, there is no criminal case of statutory rape, and it seems unlikely that any such evidence will emerge, especially since neither the young woman nor her family seems eager to press charges. By its nature, sex tends to be a private matter engaged in outside of the view of witnesses. In the absence of physical evidence such as pregnancy or sexually transmitted disease a charge of statutory rape generally requires testimony by the victim.

But since the sex was consensual, it is rare that the victim will come forward (if the sex was not consensual as it often is not between older men and young girls it is ordinary rape rather than statutory rape). Thus 99 of cases of statutory rape are not prosecuted. This raises a fundamental question about the continuing legitimacy of statutory rape laws at a time when sex involving teenagers is so rampant and prosecution for statutory rape so selective. It is obvious that there must be criminal sanctions against sex with very young children, but it is doubtful whether such sanctions should apply to teenagers above the age of puberty, since voluntary sex is so common in their ag group. Any cutoff age will, of course, be Jump-Start the Urban Classroom Networks DRAWINGBOARD CONRAD Education: The FCC should give the green light to funds earmarked for connecting have-not schools to the Internet.

Unfortunately, only 7 of urban schools mandate advanced telecommunications and networking skills training for teachers. President Eisenhower's conception and subsequent implementation of the U.S. highway system fostered our mobile society, creating industries and jobs. President Clinton's vision of a nation of learners benefiting from the Internet offers similar return. Companies like Netscape and America OnLine are already providing jobs for American youth.

The amendment isn't perfect, but it provides for much broader and systematic introduction of networking into our schools. It earmarks $2.25 billion annually for communications and networking equipment. The FCC commissioners should make the tough trade-offs and approve this highway construction project. Eric A. Benhamou, chairman and CEO of 3Com serves on President Clinton's Advisory Council on High Performance Computing and Communications, Information Technology and Next Generation Internet.

for systemic programs. Poor schools have suffered or been relegated to the slow lane or no lane. The Snowe-Rockefeller amendment to the Telecommunications Act of 1996 corrected this deficiency by funding the necessary telecommunications infrastructure. But the Federal Communications Commission must still approve it. This is critical if we're going to solve the problem of getting all U.S.

classrooms hooked up by 2000. The amendment's plan to provide the largest hookup discounts for "have-not" schools will help jump-start connectivity. Today, 47 of schools with more than 70 of their students qualifying for federal lunch subsidies have no Internet access; only 22 of the schools where less than 11 qualify for free lunches are not hooked up. This gap must be closed. Studies from pilot programs show higher test scores in English and math from Internet-enabled classrooms.

More important, technology raises test scores more for underprivileged kids than for wealthy kids, more for kids who have interactive hands-on experience (e.g. the Internet) and more where schools invest in teacher training. 3 y-n By ERIC A. BENHAMOU Just as cars aren't particularly useful without roads and freeways, the same is true of an information highway without well -planned onramps and offramps. This is particularly evident in our schools.

While classroom connectivity increased from 6 to 14 between 1994 and 1996, most of these networks are low-speed analog connections, the computer equivalent of unpaved roads. President Clinton advocates connecting all classrooms to the Internet, and this message has been heard by principals, administrators and school boards anxious to have their students log on. However, this presidential mandate has been largely unfunded, with private moneystate projects and volunteer efforts substituting The trumpet section. Days of Wine and Chocolate Pudding Alzheimer's disease turns inside out rules of nutrition and proper meals. But it can't touch the soul's nourishment.

By JENIJOY La BELLE if LJ 1 then pushes it away, She may have Alzheimer's, but she's not crazy. She leans close to my father and begins eating his pancakes. Suddenly she notices the little glass of maple syrup. "Is that whiskey?" she asks in astonishment. For a giddy instant I hope it is.

I'd gulp it down in one swig, call for the rest of the bottle, and we'd all get looped enough to forget that my mother can't remember. But the fantasy passes. And soon we're laughing because she has so startlingly recalled the name of something she's never had a drop of in her life. I realize that my mother won't be growing her own bean sprouts or baking her famous liver loaf again, but all is not lost. She's given her recipes to my sister, who probably at this moment is sprinkling wheat germ on her kids' cereal.

My parents already have lived longer than Adelle Davis by a dozen years. Let them eat cake. Let them eat brownies. They're in their 80s, in love and happy. Maybe the next time I'm home, they'll share with me their late afternoon fire, wine and just desserts.

Jenijoy La Belle is a professor of literature at Caltech. E-mail: jlbcco.caltcch.edu "It tastes good," my mother says. "And it goes well with wine," adds my father, pointing toward two empty glasses. The next morning, my boyfriend takes us out for breakfast. My mother is bewildered by the menu.

"What's a blintz?" she asks. "What's a waffle?" I explain each item. "What's a French toast?" she continues. "A voire santc!" my boyfriend puns gently. "Oh, Mama," I say impatiently, "you know all about French toast.

You've made it a thousand times." But I speak more in sorrow than in anger. My mother finally orders an omelet. "I'm not sure what it is," she confides to me, "but I think I used to teach it." I can't always follow the leaps of her mind, but this time I do and it cuts to the heart. My mother was an English teacher. Now "Hamlet" and "omelet" are scrambled together into meaningless sounds.

When her order arrives, my mother drizzles honey over it. She strews blue and pink packets of sweetener on top. She gives the mess a good stir with her spoon, foods. If she wanted us to try wheat germ, she'd sprinkle a little on our oatmeal. Each week she'd add more.

Soon we were devouring bowls of the stuff. Now, time has played a similar trick on her but with a cruel reversal. Bit by bit, Alzheimer's disease has erased the nutritional knowledge from the table of my mother's memory. Since my father, along with many other tasks, has had to take over the shopping and meal preparation, I'm worried that he and my mother are no longer eating wisely. I call my brother who still lives near our parents in Olympia, Wash.

"Mom and Dad are fine," he assures me. "I had a great supper with them last week." "What did you have?" I ask. "Brownies," he says. When I fly home for a visit, I find the yogurt maker and canisters of whole grain flour gathering dust. The freezer is full of pizzas.

Offering to fix dinner, I head for the supermarket. When I return in the afternoon, my parents are sitting by the fire chatting and eating chocolate pudding. "Why are you eating that," I scold, "when you know I'm planning a nourishing dinner?" For decades, my mother was a staunch disciple of the celebrated nutritionists Gayelord Hauser and Adelle Davis. My brother, sister and I ate what I other kids ate, but my mother enhanced everything. She stirred brewers' yeast into our fruit juice and blackstrap molasses into our milk.

She put soy flour in the biscuits and kelp in the soup. Once, after buying a vegetable juicer, the family drank so much carrot juice that our palms turned orange. My mother had a stratagem to get us started on new 1 i fc ft ft 4 A A ftvft (ft, ft ft ftftftftftft.ft. ftftftftftmftiftft ft ftft ftfttlft.