The staid San Francisco-based Public Policy Institute of California hosted a star-studded event last week, featuring four former high-profile politicians with almost as many exes attached to their names as all three Gabor sisters combined.

Among the guests at the event called "Restoring Confidence in the Legislative Process": ex-Gov., ex-U.S. Sen. ex-San Diego Mayor and ex-Assemblyman Pete Wilson; ex-Republican state Senate leader and ex-Assembly Republican leader Jim Brulte; ex-Assembly Speaker and ex-San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown; and ex-Assemblyman, ex-U.S. Rep. and ex-Senate President Pro Tem John Burton.

They didn't cast much light on how to restore confidence in the legislative process. But they certainly reminded the 400-plus people jammed into a  hotel ballroom how much fun politics can be — or at least used to be.

Wilson, Brown and Burton also shared more than a little nostalgia about the good/bad old days, before political reform got in the way of the bipartisan boozing and carousing that fostered collegiality and prevented the ugly partisanship of latter-day politics. Brown added fond memories of the backroom dealing, now also mostly gone, that got budgets passed in time. Transparency, he said, impedes judgment.

The implicit message here: Beware of excessive enthusiasm for political reform.

The basic assumption of the session, expressed by PPIC President Mark Baldassare, is that the system is dysfunctional, that voters don't like or trust the conventional political process and that there's a long menu of possible fixes.

Most are hardy perennials. One, Proposition 93, easing the state's stupid term limits, is on the February ballot. Another, shifting the power to apportion legislative and congressional districts from the Legislature to an independent commission, has started its move toward the November ballot.

A third, streamlining the budget process by reducing or eliminating the supermajority requirement and thus making the majority accountable, was generally regarded as a nonstarter for both political and policy reasons.

Maybe the most telling point came in a question from the floor before the stars had even arrived: Wasn't it possible that, given the voters' rejection of prior reforms — easing term limits and eliminating autopilot spending, for example — they really liked a little dysfunction and gridlock?

Baldassare summarily rejected the suggestion: That wasn't what the voters were saying.

But maybe, while voters complain about special interests and about politicians not getting things done, they find the alternatives even less palatable.

Make it easier to raise taxes or spend money? Not a prayer. Make term limits more flexible so legislators would have more experience and could take a long-term view of public issues? No way, unless proponents can make voters believe, as Proposition 93 tries to do, that they're tightening term limits.

As to reforming the redistricting process, Brown said every legislator does what his or her constituents want — not surprising since the current redistricting system allows members to, in effect, pick their constituents. But the constituents like that.

There's research showing that the more diverse a society gets, the more reluctant voters will be to support generous public programs. If the beneficiaries (of schools or social services) might be members of your family or people you know, you're more likely to support them.

For more than 30 years, Californians' search for perfection led them through a string of big fixes — some useful, many misconceived — that fog up representative democracy, depoliticize the governmental process and confound public accountability. Any "restoration" should be exactly that, not more of the same.

(Schrag writes for the Sacramento Bee.)