Joel Fox tries his hand at rebutting the fingers pointing at the Republicans in the Legislature today by trying the old expansion theme:
Let me be clear. I support the position that the Republicans should use their leverage to get spending and pension reforms on the ballot in exchange for tax extensions, which they could then oppose. Republicans could never get such reforms past the Democratic majority under normal circumstances.
However, the taint of failure of the budget talks won't stain the Republicans alone.
Because of the budget talk collapse, it appears that big decisions on the budget and governance could be headed to the ballot though the initiative process. Frankly, major policy decisions have been made through the initiative process for years. With the people making important policy decisions, the relevance of the legislature is diminished. (Fox and Hounds)
As a spin move, that's a pretty good one. It gets your basic point out there about Republicans being able to use their superminority power while still shunting the blame off to others. Of course, he doesn't really explain why he thinks that the Republicans should get what they want, after all they lost all the statewide offices and continue to barely break the 1/3 threshold. But he does make a valid point on the fact that the legislature is losing its power to the people through the initiative process.
This is a bad thing for a number of reasons. In a state of nearly 40 million, it makes sense to choose a few folks who can sit around all day and work on these issues. My biggest concern with the initiative process (though not my only concern) is that the voters simply don't have time to really analyze what's going on here. It's like two groups of kids arguing over a stickball game and then hoping their parents, who probably aren't even watching, can settle the disagreement. People in the Sacramento bubble think that their world is extremely important and meaningful throughout the state. And that's true for a fairly large cross section of the state, but most voters go to the polls and vote based primarily on a few tv spots and web ads they saw.
Representative democracy works. It's worked since 1789 at the federal level, and it can work now. That it is failing here doesn't mean that we should just abandon it, or pile more ridiculous burdens on top of it. We just need to clear the clutter away.
So, yes, I do think we need to drastically chip away at the power of the initiative system. Too often it is controlled by special interests (on both sides), and today it is basically to the point that Chevron doesn't really need to worry about the legislature, because they can always dump $50 million on the ballot and get the results they want (See Prop 26).
Let's cut away the Senate, and move to a 180 member (or so) Assembly unencumbered by any supermajority rules and just let the people of California rule themselves. Trust the people to elect people of merit. Representative democracy has worked for millenia, why ditch that until we have something better? |
