So I disappeared for a full week, right in the middle of what should have been a busy writing schedule, and I have to claim some "personal days" to cover the time we missed here at the blog - but it won't be time entirely wasted.
Instead, I'm going to jump into my own personal life for today's story, and I'm going to do it so that we can stimulate some thinking about where we really need to go to if we ever hope to make some sense out of the crazy way we deliver health care in this country.
Since this appears to be the weekend that a lot of decisions are either going to be made about the future of our "social safety net"...or they wont; we're entirely unsure...let's talk about how it actually works for a lot of us - and how it could work a lot better.
Health insurance companies aren't the only ones that raked in the dough as insurance premiums rose 138% over the last decade. Health insurance brokers, who get their pay as sales commissions from insurance companies, made out like bandits, too. A recent California Department of Insurance survey of four of the five top insurers in the state found that aggregate broker income rose from from $5.8 million in 2000 to $168 million in 2010--a 2800% increase. Some of that is growth of the broker industry as insurance became a for-profit product, but a lot of it is also broker pay rising along with premiums.
This week, it's the 104th anniversary of Ellis Island's one-day peak - the day when more immigrants were welcomed than any other in American history. On April 17, 1907, 11,747 immigrants became Americans - and that was just at Ellis Island.
Today, 104 years later, America is stuck in the mud with a broken immigration system. Americans want reform that unites families, promotes fair employment practices, and restores America's place as a nation that welcomes those seeking freedom from persecution and a better way of life.
This week, Immigrants' List -- a bipartisan political action committee dedicated to electing pro-immigration lawmakers - unveiled the 2011 inductees into the Immigration Hall of Shame. In the Hall of Shame are California's own, Reps. Ed Royce (#3) and Brian Bilbray (#6), who have earned places alongside the likes of Michele Bachmann and Steve King.
California voters overwhelmingly passed the Three Strikes initiative in 1994 based on the promise that it would take repeat violent offenders off the streets.
But now, more than fifteen years after the initiative’s passage, we have the benefit of facts to help us understand the true impact of Three Strikes.
Most Californians already know that in the wake of Three Strikes the cost of corrections has soared. Our state prison budget is now so high that California spends as much on prisons as we do on higher education.
But many Californians are surprised to learn that, under Three Strikes, Curtis Wilkerson of Los Angeles was sentenced to life for petty theft of a pair of socks; that Shane Taylor of Tulare was sentenced to life for simple possession of 0.1 gram of methamphetamine; or that Greg Taylor of Los Angeles was sentenced to life for attempting to break into a soup kitchen to get something to eat.
In fact, the majority of those put away for life under Three Strikes – over 4,000 people total – committed a minor, non-violent third strike. These non-violent third strikers will, according to the California state auditor, cost the state at least $4.8 billion over the next 25 years – almost $200 million per year.
The people named above have an advantage that the vast majority of three strikers do not -- they are all clients of the Three Strikes Project at Stanford Law School’s Mills Legal Clinic. Under the direction of Project co-founder Michael Romano, Stanford law students have helped get a dozen non-violent third strikers released from prison after having their sentences reduced.
“Our clients are, in almost every circumstance, absolutely guilty. We’re not going into court and saying that they didn’t do it. What we’re saying is that the punishment that they received for this petty crime is disproportionate.”
This disproportionate punishment is unjust, and it is bankrupting our state. We are wasting precious resources to unnecessarily incarcerate minor offenders who pose little threat to society for huge periods of time – and draining resources away from the law enforcement agencies, community organizations and schools that can truly prevent crime and keep us safe.
Simply put, it is time to reform Three Strikes – so that it is focused on the serious and violent repeat offenders we all agree society must be protected from. Because Three Strikes was passed by a voter initiative, it can only be changed by initiative. In the past, Three Strikes was viewed as untouchable. But now, with the state facing fiscal catastrophe, and Romano and his students bringing attention to the unjust extremes of the law with each new client that gets released, there is momentum for change.
Romano thinks that there is another ingredient necessary for successful reform: political leadership. He says that “with a few notable exceptions, there has been very little leadership on this issue from our elected law enforcement leaders.”
Now is the time to show the leadership what it will take to return to sensible, cost-effective and fair criminal justice polices in California.
The largely peaceful revolution in Cairo and Americans' celebration of it raises the question:
What would it take to mount a peaceful revolution in America against the Wall Street and corporate powerhouses that have turned the government against the best interests of our people?"
So it has come to pass that Elizabeth Edwards has died.
Despite having more things thrown at her than anyone I've ever had the chance to support in my entire political life, she managed to represent, in her very presence, a sense of grace and kindness and concern for those who were looking to have a better life than the one they had now, and I don't know that I could ever live up to the quiet courage she showed as her life came to an end.
And, bless her heart, it appears that she took the time to make sure that her kids knew her, and that she helped them put away enough "past" to, hopefully, ease some of the pain of the future.
But now the time has come to look beyond death, and, John...that's why I want to talk to you today.
Remember all that talk of a Constitutional Convention? Well, the talk has quieted down as Sacramento waits to see what happens with our once and future Governor Brown. But despite the majority vote budget measure (Prop 25) passing, there are still many structural barriers between us and a functioning government.
Of course, we still don't have a real majority budget, because there is still the 2/3 revenue rule. That now includes a more expansive definition of fee/tax that bars most of the majority vote revenue methods.
Others will tell you that we just aren't moderate enough, that our legislators would work together more if we just got more "competitive" districts. We'll see about the best districts that money can buy in 2012, but my strong hunch is that little will change. After all, why should it? Legislators are only in their positions for 6-8 years, and then they will have to run for some other position. Even with a top-two system, strong stances play better in soundbites than nuanced compromise. So, we get a legislature that represents their constituents, that is the people who vote for them. We shouldn't expect something that we ourselves don't support.
Despite the lack of real solutions from those really willing and able to fund them, we still have many parties willing to offer up some untried and untested "good government" reforms. You know the type of reforms that bring us something new, and further away from the representative democracy that worked for so long before Prop 13. And, of course, the suggestions always come from somebody with a pretty good size personal wealth, who just wants to do right by his/her home state. Sounds just like the Whitman campaign that we just finished repudiating, doesn't it?
Now, that isn't to say that we won't see additional attempts at reform, some better than others. Newly inaugurated Asm. Mike Gatto has a bunch of constitutional reforms that he has built into a package that he introduced as soon as he hit the legislature. Getting them out of Legislature will be a pretty monumental task, but you can't win if you don't play. And these reforms are all pretty common sense. They won't fix everything, but certainly a good start.
So, where does reform go from here? Well the likely answer is that it goes back to where it's always been, limping along on the back-burner. Maybe we're waiting for some shocking event to really change the atmosphere, but even the troubles that we've had over the past few years haven't really been enough to shake any positive reform into action. We'll see if the upcoming shock doctrine is any better.
Since members of the CDP's Budget Rescue Team started picking up their phones to ask Republican legislators where they stand on the Democrats' sensible budget proposals last month, we've started getting some interesting responses.
Volunteer dbunn contacted Senator Jeff Denham (R-Merced-Modesto-Salinas)'s office, where a staffer reportedly said, "Sen. Denham is opposed to the Dem budget proposals" -- and went on to defend this anti-democratic "superminority" rule!
This kind of statement shows what we've been saying all along: that Republicans would rather hold the state hostage than work with Democrats to govern effectively, We have to continue to put the pressure on budget extremists like Jeff Denham and get all of his colleagues on the record to make sure they know people are watching them if they try to hold the state hostage again.
See our easy instructions, and our progress, below and get started today!
Will you call a Republican legislator today and urge them to tell us where they stand on the Democratic budget proposals? You can call any Republican in any district -- see below for a grid of our progress and instructions for how to make your call. When you have their statement, report it by leaving a message in the comments to this thread or emailing cdpeditor@cadem.org
There's a lot working against us getting a fair budget deal, like the rule that lets a "superminority" of 1/3 plus one legislators veto any budget the majority approves. But there are some very concrete ways these calls help:
1. Maybe California can end up with a better budget. By getting Republicans on the record early, Democrats can be proactive in building our budget strategy and get Democrats and progressives the negotiating leverage we need.
With Democratic budget proposals that add revenue to avoid cuts to poverty protections, and a Schwarzenegger cuts-only budget that would put an additional 430,000 people out of work, the more progress we can make here the better.
2. We can definitely build a strong case against Republicans. The past few years, Republicans have held our state hostage to their extreme anti-revenue ideology by holding up the budget. But right now, many Californians just think "the legislature" is to blame for our annual budget problems: They don't realize the central role Republicans play
That's not an accurate picture, and these statements will help us make the case that the budget is late again because Republicans are holding us hostage, not "because both sides couldn't agree."
3. We can definitely change things this fall. If we can educate the public on the reason our budget problems get worse every year (Republicans) and the conditions that enable it (a minority can veto the majority's budget), we can take a Republican seat or two and pass Proposition 25 -- the majority vote budget initiative.
See our easy instructions, and our progress, below and get started today!
Nonpartisan reform group asks leaders to make reform part of budget talks
SACRAMENTO-California Forward's non-partisan leaders today asked legislative leaders to address the long-neglected need for lasting and fundamental budget reform as part of this year's negotiations over the state budget.
Robert Hertzberg and Thomas McKernan, co-chairs of the reform organization, sent the following letter to the four legislative leaders:
May 12, 2010
The Honorable Darrell Steinberg
President pro Tempore of the Senate
The Honorable John Pérez
Speaker of the Assembly
The Honorable Dennis Hollingsworth
Senate Republican Leader
The Honorable Martin Garrick
Assembly Republican Leader
Dear Legislative Leaders:
California Forward recognizes and deeply appreciates the significant commitment of time and energy that you and the other legislative leaders - as well as individual Assembly members and Senators and your staffs - have devoted to thoughtfully examining our non-partisan plan for comprehensive budget reform.
In both the Senate and the Assembly, members of both parties have been engaged in good-faith discussions and deliberations about how to refine the principles we have identified as key to restoring public confidence in the state's fiscal operations. It is particularly noteworthy that these discussions have proceeded even as our proposals have drawn criticism from partisan special interests invested in the status quo and opposed to reform.
As each of you know all too well, another difficult budget season is now upon us. In our judgment, it is critical that long-term budget reform become part of this year's budget deliberations.
In the next few days and weeks, each of you will have to grapple with hard choices, and set priorities about the spending of limited public dollars at a time when needs are great and California's economy remains fragile.
There are no easy answers. But the current crisis does provide California with the opportunity to finally address the long-neglected need for lasting and fundamental budget reform, and we urge you to take it.
Thanks in no small part to your efforts, this goal is in sight. In both the Senate and Assembly, real progress has been made in crafting non-partisan reforms based on the best practices of successful businesses and other states, including improved accountability and oversight, better long-term forecasting, setting unexpected windfalls aside, and adopting a pay-as-you-go mechanism for both legislation and initiatives.
Furthermore, our plan provides the first step in rethinking the relationship between state and local government, providing new incentives and resources for communities to start working together to address priorities and bring government closer to the people.
We understand that this work is not yet complete - and that significant hurdles remain before the principles we've outlined can garner the bipartisan support necessary to place them before voters in November.
We believe, however, that reform remains our best hope for forestalling future difficulties, and that failing to enact significant reforms this year would only hasten the advent of the next fiscal crisis.
That's why we ask you to continue to work together to achieve this elusive goal, and urge you to place the reforms we've proposed on the ballot. As always, we stand ready to provide any and all assistance we can in this endeavor, and we would welcome any suggestions you have about other steps we can take to move this process forward.
I was no fan of California Forward's version of the change to majority vote rules. It simply gave up too much ground on the revenue front in exchange for the budget vote. Yet, it looks like it's going the way of Repair California:
Officials from the reform group California Forward said today that unless deep-pocketed donors come through with pledges for big support, the campaign to qualify a package of their budget reform proposals for the November ballot could be put on ice.
California Forward Co-Chair Robert Hertzberg, a former Democratic leader of the Assembly, said today the group needed to secure a "few hundred thousand dollars" by week's end in order to move forward with an initiative campaign to qualify two budget reform measures, which include lowering the vote requirement for passing a budget from two-thirds to a majority vote. (CapAlert)
Seeing it die the same death as Repair California's (also flawed) efforts, does leave a bad taste in one's mouth about the initiative system even if I didn't like the measure itself. It leaves our governance up to a few rich people.
We desperately need to end the supermajority requirements, but it's becoming painfully clear that we need to do far more than that. We need big ideas on how to reform government, completely unrestricted. We need a convention that can take up any idea, is built upon thousands of democratically elected representatives. Give them a month, and they'll figure something out.
But, hey, I'm just rambling. Perhaps it's the sheer scale of all the money that is needed for real reform. It makes my head spin.
I was supposed to begin the long-delayed series of PTSD stories I've been planning, but before we begin, I need to tell y'all about something that just happened in my house.
For us it wasn't a matter of life or death, but it is the kind of story that explains, perfectly, why we need to reform the health care system we have today-and for that matter, it's also a great explanation of why a single-payer system would be a giant step forward for everyone in this country, whether you're insured today or not.
It's also hilarious and sad and frustrating, all at the same time-which makes today's story a pretty good allegory for the current American way of doing health care.
So follow along, have a good laugh...and at the same time, take a minute to consider what could be, and how much less irritating things should be.
The Republican governor openly complains about the judiciary these days for blocking budget decisions and forcing California to find billions of dollars elsewhere. Recent judgments have contributed to the state's $20.7 billion projected deficit.
Courts have ruled that California's attempts to divert transit and redevelopment money are illegal. They have found in some cases that the state cannot furlough workers. They have blocked rate cuts for in-home care workers and Medi-Cal providers. ... "Everything that hasn't been nailed down has been cut," said Anthony Wright, executive director of Health Access California. "What's left is the legally questionable stuff." (SacBee)
While legislating via the courts is really nothing new in California, there is a difference of magnitude over the last few years. Most of this is about the system. The system that denies democracy from the start with the 2/3 requirements scattered all over the constitution, yields decisions that are unsurprisingly poor. So, we get legal fights from the State Compensation Fund to the line item vetoes. And we get a pissed off Governator:
"Whenever they agree with me, they're right, very simple," Schwarzenegger said wryly in a Capitol news conference. "When they don't agree with me, they're wrong and they're interfering with our governing of the state."
But sassing the courts really helps nobody, and only takes our eyes off the systemic problems. We are in legal problems because we don't let the majority govern. We have a system that allows no one body to look at the totality of what's coming in and what's going out. The legislature can't prioritize and the governor can only really posture.
And so, we get a series of judges answering large questions on the budget, questions that would, in any sort of a normal situation, be left to our elected leaders. And Governor, you have yourself to thank for that as much as anybody else.
California needs a knight in shining armor to deliver it from the forces of budget shortfalls, program cuts, and sub-15% legislative approval ratings.
At first, I thought our hope was Gavin Newsom, but his departure from the Governor's race leaves a handful of candidates on both sides that seem inherently opposed to doing the one thing that could save this state: raising revenue.
So, who is going to carry the baton? Where is our saving grace, and when will he/she hurry their butt up and save us from sinking further and further into debt and depression?
One person who could posthumanly save the State of California is Saul Alinsky. Deemed by many as the "father of community organizing", Alinsky helped organize the Back of the Yards area of Chicago introduced to the national stage by Sinclair's "The Jungle".
Alinsky passed away in 1972 (in Carmel-By-The-Sea), but his revolutionary tactics for mobilizing the masses have time and time again generated the true catalyst for change: Friction. Given the current economic situation in this state, Lord knows we need something.
On November 19th, 52 UC Davis students were arrested after peacefully protesting the new 32% fee increases established by the UC Regents. As a second year undergraduate, I was hopeful that students were beginning to see the bigger picture: California is broken.
Students, so far, have been forcing most of the blame on the UC Regents. While it is true that the 20 Regents who voted for the increase certainly deserve a heaving portion of the blame for borrowing tens of millions (from a non-CA bank, NY Merrill Trust) while forcing students into a cycle of debt in order to protect UC's eerily superb bond rating, the only way for students to move towards enacting change is to recognize that UC's woes are symptomatic of the larger disease that has infected the entire state.
The UC student, to widen the umbrella for a movement that might have the capability of rallying support for reform, should understand that he or she risks turning people off by angling attacks towards the Regents and the Regents only. It is important to recognize that while it is a travesty that UC is becoming an unaffordable option for many California families, it is nearsighted to think that UC fees are anything more than a slice of the pie that is California's broken political system. The state workers that have been furloughed, the elderly Californians that are losing their access to Medicare, the thousands of previously middle-class Californians that have had their homes foreclosed, and the over 12% of California that is unemployed might tell students that UC is not the only government program that is underfunded, mismanaged, and increasingly unavailable to the people who need it.
I've shortened up the questions for this poll in the table here, and some may have gotten a little confusing, but most is fairly self-explanatory.
The state wants some sort of big change, it just doesn't really know how it wants, what it wants, or why it wants it. But, it just wants to start all over again.
Except keeping Prop 13 apparently. The split roll and the majority vote for revenue faired very poorly, but what can you expect? The question was basically, would you like consensus to raise taxes. Well, sure, and I like apple pie too. But when one party refuses logic, what then?
The problem with a poll like this is that these concepts are very loose in voters minds. They are almost completely defined by the question that is asked by the pollster. For an example of that, on the Parsky Commission Flat tax question, it was asked two different ways, and the answers changed by nearly ten points.
Finally, "waste and fraud delusion" in the chart refers to a question that asks respondents about waste and fraud. This makes me both sad and increases the chances that my head will explode by a factor of 10.
By a 57% to 37% margin voters believe the state can provide about the same level of services by simply eliminating waste and inefficiencies, even if its budget had to be cut by billions of dollars.
Not only is this so astronomically off the mark as to be laughable, it shows that the Republicans have destroyed us at messaging. They have made "public employee" into a synonym for all that is evil and wasteful. Despite the fact that our state employees work in some very demanding positions, the conservative movement has repeated over and over again how the government is just stealing. And now the state believes it.
Despite all the evidence to the contrary, California believes that it is "waste" that is bankrupting the state. Despite the fact that the Republicans couldn't come up with anything near even a billion dollars of identifiable waste. Despite the fact that the Republican budget slashed services, cut to the very core of what Californians have requested, nay demanded, since the days of Pat Brown.
Californians want their yummy chocolate cake, but they also want to eat the tasty carrot cake on the shelf. The key is that we can't give up, and give in to this. We must continue to fight for changes that will make the state productive once again.
But I refer back to the problem with a poll like this: the questions define the answers. The poll on this last question sounds like something you'd hear on Fox and Friends:
The state government has been facing large budget deficits over the past several years. Some people believe that by simply eliminating waste and inefficiencies our state government can provide roughly the same level of services that it currently does, even if its budget has to be cut by 20-25 billion dollars. Do you agree strongly, agree somewhat, disagree somewhat or disagree strongly with this view?
Really? Some people believe? Care to name one of them that doesn't have a financial or electoral stake in that fact gaining traction? And even given that standard, you would be hard pressed to find anybody that really pays attention to the state government who thinks you can cut $20 billion from a budget that is now well below $100 billion and expect no service cuts. I would love to chit-chat with that person.
In the end, polling for these kinds of nebulous question goes only so far, no matter how good the pollster. This is the problem with all of this direct democracy, it allows one person or another to put their finger on the scale, whether in the form of the AG's description or the pollster's question.
We elect representatives to think about these issues for us, to come up with good answers. Yet we have consistenly knee-capped them over the last 30 years. Californians want big change, they just don't want to change.
Incidentally, if you'd like to see some different questions get asked, you could look to George Lakoff. Some progressive activists are seeking money to fund a poll. They've raised $10,000 and are looking for another $25,000. You can help by giving on ActBlue.
UPDATE by Robert: This morning Brian beat me to the Field Poll post. What I was going to say is: It's easy for Californians to say they want change, just as it turned out be fairly easy for the American people to say they wanted change by electing Obama last fall. As we're seeing in Washington D.C., actually implementing change is the hard part. Are people - and legislators - really willing to give up long-held assumptions, beliefs, and ways of doing business, without which change cannot happen?
We're witnessing the same thing here in California. Voters want change, but they are wary of the details, and are not yet abandoning old ideologies. That's not to say they'll refuse to do so - instead, in the absence of a clearly articulated and defined alternative vision for California, polls show that voters are not automatically going to give up on the 1978 model of California governance, even though its failure is obvious to all.
I agree with Brian that we've been getting "destroyed" at messaging. Even now, progressive and Democratic organizations still do not want to accept the importance of doing the basic work of creating and actively, consistently, and coherently pushing progressive frames. The consultantocracy still believes in playing for the near-term narrow victory, and has no confidence in their ability to produce fundamental changes in voter thought or voter behavior.
These poll numbers do show that Californians want change. And they are a starting point for how we can produce it. The numbers on Prop 13 are a baseline, not a sign that we should stay away from the topic. And the numbers on the Parsky Commission proposals show that voters do want progressive solutions. It's time we offered them.
So we are now finding out the answers to some of our questions about which members of Congress actually represent We, the People...and which ones represent, Them, the Corporate Masters.
We have seen a Democratic Senator propose a policy that would put people in jail for not buying health insurance and a Democratic President who has taken numerous public beatings from those on the left side of the fence for his inability to ram something through a group of people...and yes, folks, the entendre was intentional.
But most of all, we've been asking ourselves: "why would Democratic Members of Congress who will eventually want us to vote for them vote against something that nearly all voting Democrats are inclined to vote for?"
Today's conversation attempts to answer that question by looking at exactly how money and influence flow through a key politician, Montana's Senator Max Baucus-and in doing so, we examine some ugly political realities that have to be resolved before we can hope to convince certain Members of Congress to vote for what their constituents actually want when it really counts.
In all of the back and forth over what should or shouldn't be discussed in reforming California's system of government, many ideas have been put forward. One suggestion that has stuck with me -- why not set up a Constitution wiki?
The idea seems straightforward, although I think the execution would be rather complex. Create a wiki with the current state constitution -- and perhaps the constitutions of other states -- as reference points. Then, just dive in and start writing. With several (dozens? hundreds? thousands?) exploring ideas, we might come to a consensus. However, I would like to suggest that we consider a wiki that offers multiple options, based on the choices people make.
For example, do we stick with the traditional American system or go for a more parliamentary system? Making that choice means very different outcomes in writing the articles for the executive and legislative branches, and both should be explored. Should we keep a bicameral legislature, or switch to a unicam? Should we keep single-member, plurality districts, or move to proportional representation? Each of these questions would need exploring, with the goal of crafting a complete, coherent Constitution no matter which choices are made along the design path. In the end, instead of one option, we might have 20, but each version having been reviewed for internal consistency.
So, what do you people think? Would this be a project worth trying?
Arnold re-launched the transparency in government website today, with a whole lot of virtual pomp. Laura Chick, the stimulus watchdog or something like that, has been pressing for the site to have all the details of the various spending projects.
It didn't really work the first time:
Chick said the intent of the governor's original order was clear, to make government more transparent by posting online all kinds of reports, reviews and audits. But she got significant amount of push back from agencies, Chick said.
Chick accused many departments of having a culture of "resistance, sabotage and ... denial." (SF Gate 9/9/09)
But there is a bigger problem, one which Chick recognizes, the state's IT infrastructure, really, really, really stinks. The "newly redesigned site" is straight out of 1998. It's not totally unworkable, but really fails to use any modern web technology to make this stuff easy.
I'm not saying there isn't resistance to this in Sacramento, of course there is. The reporting, given the IT infrastructure, is likely a huge pain. Also, it would be naïve to dismiss the claims of flat out wanting to hide the ball. But this isn't really a problem of just the bureaucracy. This is a problem of the entire state government.
When you build a system that is designed to fail, eventually it will break down. And a broken government, such as we have now, will seek to hide those very real facts. Transparency (or lack thereof) is a symptom of the problem, neither a cure nor the ailment.
If we were to build a better government, we'd get a more transparency. But building a window into a pitch black room really doesn't give you a whole lot of information.
We are coming down to the home stretch on healthcare, and we have seen the results of the first couple of rounds of crazy that have been sent forth in an effort to stop the process.
In addition to the Town Halls, opponents are flooding the email inboxes of America's "low information" voters with no end of lies. Those emails are getting passed around and around and around, and by now some of them have probably appeared in your inbox.
But it's summer...and who has time to respond to this stuff?
Well, guess what, Gentle Reader: I've already done the hard work for you.
Today's story is an email response that you can send right back to your "inbox friends". It's a reminder of some of the frustrations that we all share in this country and some explanations of what's being proposed...and a few words about socialism, to boot.
So get out there and copy and paste and forward and reply, and let's see if we can't fight the madness, one email at a time.
We complain a lot about the national media not really understanding what's going on in California. Other than an occasional column by Paul Krugman, the national coverage of the California crisis has been almost universally off target. It's been either "post-partisan" drivel about Arnold Schwarzenegger or Gavin Newsom or some other governor past, present, or future, or it has been so blatantly wrong on the issues facing the state as to be laughable. For a good example of both, you can see the New York Times article from July.
But there is no reason it has to be that way, a journalist could take a few hours, do some research, and figure out a pretty good idea of what's going on here. While Hendrik Hertzberg misses some of the nuance of the issues facing our Golden State, he does grasp the big pitcture in the August 24 issue of the New Yorker.
California, it turns out, is ungovernable. Its public schools, once the nation's best, are now among the worst. Its transportation and water systems are deteriorating. Its prisons are so overcrowded that it has to turn tens of thousands of felons loose. And its legislature has spent most of the year in a farcical effort to pass the annual budget, leaving little or no time for other matters, such as-well, schools, transportation, water, and prisons. This is "normal": the same thing has happened in eighteen of the past twenty-two years. But the addition of economic disaster to legislative paralysis may have brought California to a tipping point.
... The nadir, some would say, came in 1978, when Proposition 13 essentially capped property taxes and made California the only state that requires a two-thirds vote of the legislature both to adopt a budget and to raise a tax. The decline in public services was one result. Another has been a distortion of the state's politics. Conservative Republican legislators have little incentive to compromise or even to broaden their appeal; to prevail on most of what is important to them, all they need is one-third plus one. (New Yorker 8/24/09)
He doesn't sugar coat it, or try to provide some sort of bipartisan spin on what's really happening. We have a cult that is masquerading as a political party that is dead set on pushing social services and all but the richest among us off the cliff. And for whatever criticisms you can levy at him, you have to give Hertzberg credit for recognizing the issue.
The article goes on to deal with the now prominent question of a Constitutional Convention. He's a fan. Big-time.
The genius of Repair California's approach is twofold. First, it steers clear of "social issues": no gay marriage, no abortion, no affirmative action. Second, the delegates would be chosen randomly from the adult population. (Appointed delegates, Repair California reasons, would be beholden to whoever appointed them; and if the delegates were elected, the elections would inevitably be low-turnout affairs dominated by money and the organized clout of special interests.) The convention itself would be an exercise in what is called "deliberative democracy." The delegates would spend months studying the issues, consulting experts, debating among themselves, and forging a consensus. The result would be put to a vote of the people, yes or no, in November of 2012.
To have faith in such a process requires a faith in the good sense and sincerity of ordinary people-a faith that just about everybody professes. The beauty part is that no one can know what the delegates would come up with-which is why the idea has won such broad support. ... If California has the courage and imagination to become a true laboratory of democracy, the experiment will be something to see.
You can't blame Hertzberg for his optimism, the whole thing does sound very exciting. And, truth be told, it is very exciting. Of course, the problem here is that when the lab is your home, it is easy to get cold feet about the whole thing. But, when you talk about fundamentally changing California's governance, you really can't help but be excited. Think of all the cool directions you could go - a unicameral legislature, some sort of proportionate representation, heck, we could even look at a parlimentary system. The world is our oyster in that we could pick and choose good aspects of governments from around the world.
But there is a down side, namely that we could very well end up with something crazy in the Constitution. As Jean Ross pointed out during the Netroots Nation panel, the last time we had a Constitutional Convention we ended up with the Chinese Exclusion Laws.
The suggestion so far is to create a random selection in order to decide the delegates. It is an intriguing suggestion, as perhaps the people would come without the preconceived biases of current legislators. We would avoid the campaign finance issues and all the issues of special interest money. But biases can be built back up quickly enough, and getting a completely clean slate would be difficult if not impossible. Depending on the process, we could easily end up with a similar problem to that which we have now: a minority holding up the whole system.
I suppose that after writing about California politics, the cynicism and pessimism can't help but be strong. But that cynicism is there for a reason. The Republican Party in California has blossomed into a full-on Zombie Death Cult, and that has spread from some of the grassroots base of the party to a general mistrust of the system. We are now in a period of vast mistrust of the government, and to expect citizens to simply re-empower a functional government is to be almost foolishly optimistic.
That all being said, the process does slightly work in the favor of experimentation. If we do get a constitutional convention called, we can play with the house's money to an extent. If we get something solid out of the convention, great we have a working system. If we don't get anything, well, all we've wasted is a bit of time and some money to pull the convention together. And if we get a document that isn't an improvement, well, it has to be put up for a vote once again. While it may seem odd for organizers and supporters of the convention movement to then oppose its output, the option of defeating the thing is still there.
Is the whole thing risky? Of course. But it just might be worth doing. After all, it's not like the status quo is really anything worth holding on to.
