Oh, what a tangled web the politicians weave. In California’s capital of Sacramento, political operatives connected to Senate President Perata and Speaker Nunez are pushing an initiative to weaken term limits.

But the measure is being sold as reducing the amount of time legislators can stay in office. You see, polls show voters support tougher term limits, not weaker.

The Perata-Nunez initiative would actually allow most legislators to double their time in the Assembly or to serve 50 percent longer in the Senate. But for about 10 percent of legislators, who currently serve the maximum in both chambers, it would decrease their time by two years.

Except there’s another twist. Under current law, Speaker Nunez and 30 percent of the Assembly will be termed out in 2008, as will Senate President Perata and 45 percent of the Senate. But none will be termed-out under the new initiative. They’ll all get a special exemption to stay in office.

Recently, Attorney General Jerry Brown issued a title and summary to explain the measure to voters. In a column entitled “Term-limit summary’s misleading,” Sacramento Bee columnist Dan Walters agreed with U.S. Term Limits that Brown “virtually plagiarizes” the politicians’ “self-serving description” of their initiative.

U.S. Term Limits has filed suit against Brown’s slanted title and summary.

“Rather than make the logical case for softening term limits, the campaign wants to trick voters into thinking that they are tightening up limits,” wrote Walters. “Jerry Brown is abetting that strategy.”

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.