SACRAMENTO -- A prominent California Democrat believes the time might be ripe to challenge the state's term limits law in front of the California Supreme Court.

State Sen. Ron Calderon of Montebello, who spearheads the legislature's efforts to reform term limits and redistricting laws, said Saturday that California voters are reluctant to alter the term-limit laws.

But Calderon, who also chairs the Senate Elections, Reapportionment and Constitutional Amendments Committee, thinks the state's top justices might be a more receptive audience.

"It depends how politically minded they are and how concerned they are about public opinion," Calderon told the Sacramento Bee Saturday.

Under the current term-limits law, Californian politicians are retricted to serving eight years in the senate and six years in the lower house.

Opponents of the limits like Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez say they rob the public of experienced and talented legislators. He is proposing a term limit of 12 years service in either house or a combination of both.

The California Supreme Court ruled in 1991 that the law was constitutional. But Calderon said the court's makeup has altered drastically since then and that it might now be more flexible on the issue.

Calderon notes that not a single justice on the Supreme Court in 1991 still serves there today. "We're in different times," he said. "We've seen the results and effects of term limits."

A recent poll conducted by the Public Policy Institute of California found that barely one third of voters supported altering Proposition 140, the state's 17-year-old term-limits statute. Prop 140 was passed by voters 52 percent to 48 percent in 1990.

So Calderon, who's been consulting attorneys and lawmakers, believes the best chance of altering the law is for a termed-out legislator to mount a Supreme Court challenge to the law.

Of the 21 states that first passed term limts, supreme courts in four - Massachusetts, Oregon, Washington an Wyoming - declared them unconstitutional.