Otherwise Known as the William Burke Bill

It must feel flattering to be Air Quality Management District chairman William Burke. After all, how often can a legislator claim to have a bill introduced by colleagues whose sole purpose would be to ensure that he/she remains in office indefinitely?

That seems to be the exact goal of SB 886, a piece of legislation authored by Senator Gloria Negrete McLeod, D-Chino, that would specifically exempt Burke from the current two-term limit. Burke has served as chairman of the AQMD, which is in charge of enforcing air pollution laws in cities throughout Los Angeles, Orange, San Bernardino and Riverside counties, for nine years.

Though the bill has already been struck down twice before (go figure), Senator McLeod decided to give it yet another try, perhaps figuring that three time's the charm. What initially started as an effort to make "technical, nonsubstantive changes" to California's clean air laws quickly morphed into a completely different, multipronged bill seeking to add a 13th member to the AQMD and to remove term-limit restrictions on the chairs of the AQMD, Sacramento Metropolitan AQMD and Mojave District AQMD.