Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, lounging in Hawaii on spring break with his wife and kids, tells a reporter that state lawmakers should follow his lead and take more time off. The Legislature, he says, "doesn't have enough to do." Their full-time status in Sacramento simply gives them too much time to make mischief.

"I want to make the Legislature a part-time Legislature," the governor said to the Los Angeles Times. "Spending so much time in Sacramento, without anything to do, then out of that comes strange bills. I like them when they're scrambling and they really have to work hard. Give them a short period of time. Then good work gets done, rather than hanging. That's when they start getting creative with things."

Schwarzenegger declined to offer any examples of the kind of "strange bills" he is fretting about.
Maybe I can help.

There is AB 1857, which seeks to prohibit the declawing of exotic or wild cats. And AB 1833, which would require cell phone-cameras to emit a sound or light warning you that someone is snapping a picture. Then there was the bill (SB 1520) to outlaw fois gras, the duck liver delicacy opposed by animal rights activists, and the resolution (ACR 144) proposing that state building codes incorporate the principles of feng shui, the ancient Chinese art of designing and furnishing buildings to maximize spiritual and material well-being. Annually, the Legislature has a lengthy debate over whether to legalize ferrets as pets.

These are isolated cases of triviality among the thousands of bills considered by the Legislature each year. But more substantive examples also abound. When they aren't worrying about feline claws, lawmakers keep themselves busy stirring up trouble between optometrists and ophthalmologists, or dentists and hygienists, with regular fights over professional and commercial turf. Or diving into the arcanity of the rental car industry.

In fact, while the California Legislature is officially one of four in the nation designated as full-time, legislating really is not what most people would consider a full-time job. Lawmakers annually roll into town in early January and begin introducing bills. But they don't start serious committee hearings until February or March, and even then, the business piles up until self-imposed deadlines approach for moving the measures from one committee to another or from the Assembly to the Senate. In a mad rush of late-night hearings, they consider hundreds of bills in a short time frame, then collapse from exhaustion and slip back into their relative slumber.

This cycle repeats itself several times each year, culminating in the final two or three weeks of the session each summer, when the fate of hundreds of pieces of legislation is decided in around-the-clock sessions at which few lawmakers even know what they are voting on most of the time.

Officially, the Legislature takes a week off in the spring, four weeks off in summer, and goes home for the year some time in September. But even when they are in session, except at the busiest times, lawmakers start their week in the Capitol on Monday afternoon and end it Thursday morning.

So Schwarzenegger is right. There is a lot of time wasted under the dome. The question is not whether lawmakers could get their job done in less time. They could. The question is whether they would get it done any better.

A part-time Legislature would mean an end to the $100,000 salaries we pay now, and, presumably, a change in the kind of person who runs for these offices. As with the term limits voters approved in 1990, the idea would be to create more of a "Citizen Legislature," where regular folks leave their lives for a few weeks or months at a time to come to the Capitol and set policy.

But term limits, if anything, have made the Legislature even more political than it was before. New members are as ambitious as ever, and now they know as soon as they arrive that they must begin laying the groundwork for their next step up the political ladder. Much of their time is spent infighting with colleagues or intriguing with lobbyists and consultants about their next move.

Going part-time might only exacerbate those problems. "Normal" people aren't generally in a position to leave their jobs, homes and families for several weeks of public service. Have you seen a jury lately? A part-time Legislature would likely be packed with retirees, stay-at-homes and people whose jobs allow them to take extended leaves. Think lawyers, and union bosses.

Downgrading the Legislature would also shift more power to the executive branch, with a permanent bureaucracy and the governor not only setting the agenda but riding herd over inexperienced and unsophisticated lawmakers with little institutional memory. No wonder Schwarzenegger likes the idea.

It is true that the great promise and potential of a full-time Legislature - that professional policy-makers would be the public's eyes and ears, keeping close watch on the operation of state government - has never been fulfilled. I would still like to find a way to make that happen before giving up on the ideal.