The Bay Area Council, a business coalition from the...um...Bay Area, has announced that they will drop $2 million into the Repair California efforts that they have been pushing for the last few years. Their efforts to get a constitutional convention may, or may not, result in a ballot measure effort for the November 2010 election. Maybe.
Repair California, a coalition preparing two Constitutional Convention initiatives for the November 2010 ballot, will receive $2 million from its chief sponsor, the Bay Area Council.
Steven Hill, a coalition member and director of the political reform program at the New America Foundation, made the announcement a few minutes ago at a constitutional reform convention in Sacramento. It represents about half of what the group estimates it will need to run a successful initiative campaign.
Hill also outlined some of of the details of the planned initiatives, which he said will be filed with the state in the next 10 days.
The first initiative authorizes the voters to call a Constitutional Convention, an act restricted under current law to the Legislature. The second measure convenes a convention limited to the review of governance issues. Its recommended reforms would come back to voters in subsequent elections. (CoCo Times)
But the real question is how the delegates are allocated. And as of right now, it appears that they will be allocated at the County Supervisor level. Every county gets one, and another for each 250K of population, with some provisions made for the 1mil+ cities. If it's a winner take all thing, where a 3-2 Republican lean appoint all of the delegates, we're looking at a heavily Republican convention. Even if there is some proportionate representation in the bigger counties, it's hard to see how it gets anywhere near the big Democratic advantage we see in the Legislature.
Obviously this is unacceptable. On one level, how could progressives support something with such a big thumb on the scale for conservatives. On the other, law-side, how does the BAC plan on getting around the legal precedent striking down representation based upon counties. It violates the one man-one vote principle.
There is still time to change the proposed language, but if this is the plan, I for one will not be supporting it. |
