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.
We've all been hearing the "Town Hall Meeting" stories the past few days, and the images presented have been of gatherings where you might see some current or former official "death panel" for the benefit of the crowd, where the few people who shout the loudest bully the rest into silence, and where threats of physical intimidation are part of the debate.
I attended one of these meetings, and based on what I saw I'm here to tell you that it is possible to hold an event that features none of the images previously described.
Instead, what I say was an event where people asked their questions, the Congressman answered-and from time to time the angry members of the audience got their shout on, too...but not in a way that was able to ever take control of the venue.
There were helpful lessons that can be applied by others who want to have these meetings, and today's conversation examines what can be done to make them work for you, too.
With the passage of H.R.3200 out of Energy and Commerce on Friday, and the other relevant committees earlier in July, she could rightly report historic progress. Such a health reform proposal has now moved farther than any previous attempt in the modern era, and it set the stage for a House vote in September after the August recess.
But health care reform hangs in the balance, with opponents of the President detemined to "rattle" Congressman by disrupting town hall meetings and otherwise create an anti-reform political environment. As has been stated on Calitics before, those who support health reform need to be active NOW AND THROUGH AUGUST, CALLING, WRITING, FAXING, and VISITING our California Congressional Representatives, with a positive message about reform and its various components, from a public health insurance option to minimum benefits standards to affordability subsidies to the financing that allows for the needed upfront investments.
Californians have a particularly important say in health reform in the House of Representatives, from the Speaker to key Committee Chairmen, to Caucus leaders, to the bulk of our 53-member delegation. Health reform supporters can call your member of Congress in support of health reform at 877-264-HCAN, or click here to help pass reform.
Below the fold, we'll detail more about the bill, the process, and where California's Congressional representatives have come down on health reform to date:
Just returned from the August 3rd Town Hall meeting on a State Constitutional Convention held at California Lutheran University in Thousand Oaks. There were about 200 people in attendance; a lot of retired upscale suburban folks with some elected officials, party activists, and Chamber of Commerce types mixed in.
The speaker's panel consisted of Timm Herdt, Sacramento correspondent for the Ventura County Star, Jim Wundeman of the Bay Area Council, poli-sci professor Dr. Herb Gooch of CLU, and Superior Court Judge James Cloninger.
The prospect of over $25b coming out of the California economy-more than was added by the federal stimulus-is a terrifying thought. In addition to the immediate havoc this budget will wreak-for example on the lives of the thousands of people losing their jobs as a result of this-it also stands to work long-term damage to the pillars of California's economy by, among other things, permanently diminishing our ability to generate the kind of knowledge workers that out tech-heavy economy demands.
It's bad.
But we're not even being asked to sacrifice for a better tomorrow. We're being asked to take it on the chin for a worse tomorrow. I am not writing to vent my spleen about one or even ten aspects of this horrible budget. Believe it or not, almost no matter what your issue is, I agree. Even with the concept that ideally this would include no taxes. That is because I believe that California requires a stimulative budget, not a contractionary one. (That's for another diary). The point is this: nothing about this grand compromise does anything to address any of the structural problems that face the state. Before I would even consider some of the draconian tradeoffs in this package, I would demand that a number of referenda be put on the ballot addressing real reform.
In a rather convincing bi-partisan manner, the Senate budget cut measures that failed to garner 2/3 support in the Senate have now been approved by the Assembly overwhelmingly. The package is a mixture of cuts and payment deferrals that would keep delay the issuance of IOUs until at least August.
Once again, Twitter is the best source of news. From John Myers' feed:
Bill #3 appears headed to passage, which means it's now up to the Senate to possibly challenge Guv to veto the $5 bil in temporary cash.
31 minutes ago from TwitterBerry Asm GOP leader Blakeslee: "I am heartened that Repubs and Dems are working together." Calls the stopgap measures a "first step."
33 minutes ago from TwitterBerry
Assmbly has reconvened to vote on bill #3 of the "stopgap pkg" (three of the deficit relief bills that would avoid IOUs next month).
37 minutes ago from TwitterBerry
To add some more context, the Governor has been saying that he would veto any measure that bought additional time. However, it appears that the Assembly GOP, with the approval of these three measures to avoid July IOUs, has decided that they don't feel the same way. If the Senate GOP gets on board with the Assembly GOP, we might see a showdown between the branches of government and the possibility of the first legislative override in over 25 years.
However, it is far from clear that the Senate GOP will get on board with Sam Blakeslee's delaying tactic. In the last round, they rejected cuts as insufficient to address the entirety of the problem. However, with their Assembly colleagues on board, will they change their stance? Well, there will be one voice in the room to block the IOUs, Abel Maldonado. From the Great Maldo's twitter feed:
IOUs to the people of california are not an option
about 4 hours ago from TwitterBerry Caucus just ended, I still believe we are close to a whole solution.. More to come.
about 4 hours ago from TwitterBerry Need more than just cuts. People demand refrom. Solution should be combo: north of $13 billion cuts and real reform.
12:33 PM Jun 24th from TwitterBerry
Honestly, I have no idea of what kind of game Maldonado is running at this point. Is he in the Senate GOP Caucus advocating for outright tax increases? Doubtful. But, according to a tweet from Myers yesterday, Maldo is thinking of offering his own solution. What "real reform" means? Again, this is Maldo speaking, so it's anybody's guess.
We should hear something about the Senate votes today.
With the budget crisis looming, Sen. Steinberg has called for legislators to cut their salary, and many are or are about to:
Official letters are starting to roll in -- two so far -- from state senators answering the call to sacrifice during a time of fiscal crisis and volunteer for a 5 percent pay cut.
As of this afternoon, the State Controller's Office, which issues legislators' paychecks, reported receiving letters from two senators: Ellen Corbett, D-San Leandro, and Patricia Wiggins, D-Santa Rosa. (SacBee 6/18/09)
Hats off to Sens. Corbett and Wiggins on getting their letters in on time. Considering that state workers are taking furloughs and the related pay cuts, legislative self-cuts probably should have happened in February. But, I have an offer for the people of California that is really too good to refuse: I'll legislate for FREE.
You don't have to worry about paying me a cent. Now, I will go ahead and have a consulting company. I hope you won't mind when I work for Polluters, Inc. while I'm legislating. It's completely unrelated, I assure you. And while I'm too busy working on the big OilCo account, I'll have my staff take care of the work at the office. Don't worry, you didn't elect them, but they are really great people. And my friend, Joe Lobbyist, will be letting me know all the details of all the bills coming up for vote. He's really a great guy, that Joe. Always looking out for the people of California. You can count on that, because it's the slogan of his lobbying firm.
Listen, I grew up in Texas, which has a part-time Legislature. It didn't work. It created ridiculous conflicts of interest. My own house representative growing up was an insurance broker. Surprisingly, he voted to block insurance regulations over and over again. In Austin, Democrat Dawnna Dukes has pillaged the state for contracts for her siblings and her consulting company.
What you get with a volunteer legislative body is exactly what you pay for. You get conflicted, greedy, and corrupt legislators, mixed in with some well-meaning leaders who have to be independently wealthy in order to dedicate their time to the job. It locks all but the rich out of the system, and nets some crazy stuff that we really don't want here.
I get that people are frustrated with the Legislators. And for good reason, we are in the midst of a crisis. But, by and large, they are a product of the system. We cannot scapegoat them for our own failures. We give them an unworkable system and tell them to produce miracles. It simply cannot happen without the systemic change that California voters seem reluctant to grant.
What was Max Baucus thinking at his appearance at the "newsmakers" breakfast of the Kaiser Family Foundation Thursday when in the space of a few minutes he made the following two statements about healthcare reform:
"Everything's on the table. Everything. All proposals. All ideas that groups may have are on the table. And they're going to stay on the table. We are going to discuss them."
And, then two minutes later, pressed to explain why he continues to gag discussion of the option most favored by nurses, doctors, and tens of thousands of consumer activists, single payer, Baucus can say:
1. Karen Ignani, the president of the insurance industry trade lobby, America's Health Insurance Plans, offers to end the outrageous industry practice of charging women more than men for health coverage, and is widely praised for the concession.
Even though the reprehensible practice of institutionalized gender bias should have been considered out of bounds long ago. The industry was not even shamed by the report last fall by the National Women's Law Center that insurers charged 40-year-old women up to 48 percent more than men of the same age for the same coverage.
And even though the "offer" remains conditional. AHIP continues to demand conditions in health reform proposals now before Congress, including a requirement that all Americans currently without coverage be forced to buy private insurance, and that Congress block any inclusion of a public alternative to private insurance. Now they've increased the ante and want federal pre-emption of state-based public protection regulations on insurers, such as requirements in a number of states that private insurers must cover such critical basics as maternity care or preventive cancer screenings.
As we get ready for the State Democratic Party Convention that starts this Friday, I am reminded of what Alan Cranston said over 50 years ago: The Democratic Party should be about electing Democrats, first and foremost.
Times have changed since the days of Alan Cranston, but our party's priority must remain the same - electing Democrats.
Unfortunately, June 2010's Open Primary Initiative could bring back the 1950's when open primaries allowed Republicans to dominate Democratic primaries and the California Democratic Party was ineffective and weak. We must begin this weekend to build an organization dedicated to defeating this ballot measure. If we fail, we could lose our hard-fought legislative majorities and allow the Republicans to decimate our gains in education, health care and public policy.
I will be hosting the morning show on KRXA 540 AM from 8 to 10 this morning and will discuss this and other aspects of California politics
One of the most positive aspects of the Constitutional Convention Summit that was held on Tuesday in Sacramento is that those who put it together, and most of those who spoke on stage, were not Sacramento insiders. Whether it was the Bay Area Council or the Courage Campaign or Common Cause, they were groups that have some power and representation, whether it's the corporate base of the BAC or the mass base of the Courage Campaign. But the "interested outsider" aspect of the Summit was, I believe, one of the things that made it so potent and effective an occasion to speak to our state's future.
Of course, politicians know a popular idea when they see one, so it should come as no surprise that Arnold Schwarzenegger is now interested in a convention, as George Skelton's latest column explains. And while Skelton shows his high Broderism in his desire to anoint Arnold as some kind of far-sighted reformer, the truth is much more mundane - he simply wants to destroy the Democratic Party.
Take a look at what Arnold's proposing:
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger says he "absolutely" loves the idea of holding a constitutional convention to overhaul state government...
The Republican governor would like the convention to consider, among other things, eliminating some statewide offices -- like treasurer, controller, superintendent of public instruction and, especially, lieutenant governor, all currently held by Democrats.
"It makes no sense that the governor is surrounded by constitutional officers who are trying to derail him," Schwarzenegger says. "Look at the way the nation runs: The president appoints those Cabinet positions."
Translation: "It makes no sense that I, a Republican, am surrounded by Democrats the people chose to balance out my power." The governor of California is not the president of the United State and should not be treated as such.
Arnold's also willing to consider lowering the 2/3 rule, but only on budgets, and only if it becomes a de facto spending cap:
Schwarzenegger has long defended the two-thirds majority vote requirement for budget passage. But after the just-concluded months-long struggle, he's now willing to consider reducing the vote threshold to a simple majority if spending growth is kept under 5%.
And Skelton plays along with Arnold's dreams of being remembered as anything other than an epic failure by suggesting that anti-Democratic solutions such as a top-two primary and the spending cap are decisive factors in determining his legacy as a reformer:
Schwarzenegger says he wants to make the parties "less relevant." They're already pretty irrelevant in California. But the governor says: "Right now, every [candidate] is like, 'How can I win the primary? How can I kiss up to the party?'
This is nonsense, and should be read in the context of voters' total unwillingness to give Arnold the complete control over the state that he has long sought. Arnold's argument isn't with the system but with the voters themselves who have quite deliberately chosen to populate Sacramento with Democrats precisely because they don't want Arnold's term in office to become a runaway train of conservatism.
It's a shame that Skelton isn't willing to actually be a reporter and question why Arnold is saying these things. Arnold's versions of "reform" have always involved pursuit of anti-progressive options designed to concentrate power in the hands of Republican governors.
Whereas the Constitutional Convention Summit saw a diverse collection of groups from the center and the left openly discuss ways to increase democracy and make government work better. The contrast with Arnold's concept of "reform" is striking.
If Californians ultimately decide to call a convention, it will be in recognition of Arnold's failure to produce anything positive in the way of change in California government. If he likes the idea of a convention so be it, but it will happen to fix what he helped break, instead of to implement his desired "legacy" of destroying Democrats.
160 years ago a group of newly arrived Anglos and Spanish-speaking Californios met at Colton Hall here in Monterey (pictured at right in a flickr photo by fritzliess) and held California's first Constitutional Convention. The document they produced was literally copied from the Iowa state constitution but had some elements of the Mexican system of government and justice grafted onto it, and included full protection of Spanish speakers' rights in what was officially a bilingual state.
California's constitution has undergone significant change since then. In 1878 the Workingmen's Party rode an anti-Chinese backlash and the Long Depression to power, and rewrote the Constitution in an effort to undermine the power of wealthy interests. (Unfortunately they also ended the 1849 bilingual policy.) In 1911 the Constitution was essentially rewritten when Progressive Republican Hiram Johnson pushed through the initiative, referendum and recall. And in 1978 another dramatic set of Constitutional revisions was initiated by Prop 13.
Americans think of their constitutions as static and unchanging, but this has never been the case. Both the US and the California constitution have undergone frequent revision. Sometimes this comes in the form of actual amendments, but it can also take the form of significant changes in Constitutional interpretation. The only amendments that came out of the New Deal were the 20th and 21st (moving Inauguration Day to January 20 and ending Prohibition) but as most historians and political scientists agree, FDR nevertheless initiated major changes to the way the American government operated.
California's constitution has been amended frequently - over 500 times by some accounts - and included an effort in the late 1960s to modernize the document. Still, it has become clear that California's government is broken and unable to meet the needs of one of the worst crises our state has ever faced. The economic crisis, drought, an energy and environmental crisis that seem to have faded a bit from the public mind but are still very much here - all of these problems are dumped into the lap of a government hamstrung by a conservative veto and a series of rules, many of which date from the last 30 years, designed specifically to prevent government from meeting the people's needs.
The spectacle of Abel Maldonado blackmailing the Legislature to accede to his demands as the price of passing a budget last week showed the need to eliminate the 2/3 rule. It is the first change, the tree that blocks the tracks, the door that opens that path to all other changes. But it has become clear that California needs even deeper reform to solve the present crisis and meet the needs of a 21st century state. Periods of major economic change usually are accompanied by constitutional change - hell, even the US Constitution itself owes its existence to the severe economic crisis of the 1780s, one of the worst in American history.
That's why the Courage Campaign, where I work as Public Policy Director, is joining the Bay Area Council and a diverse coalition of organizations to sponsor a Constitutional Convention Summit on Tuesday in Sacramento (you can register at Repair California).
It's my own personal belief, and one shared by the Courage Campaign, that a Constitutional Convention can successfully fix California's broken government. In a poll of our members last September over 90% said they supported a convention. And in December we launched CPR for California - a Citizens Plan to Reform California that included some major structural fixes for the state, including fixing the budget process and producing long-overdue initiative reform as well as empowerment solutions such as public financing of elections and universal voter registration.
But the key to success is that a convention must truly be "of the people." A convention will fail - and may not even be approved by voters - if it is seen as a top-down effort. Remember of course that a Constitution is a social compact, the product of a sovereign people, a recognition that we must have government to survive but that it must also be accountable to the people. For a Constitutional Convention to have legitimacy it must include the people of California at every step of the journey - especially in setting the Convention's priorities. Additionally, the delegates who attend the Convention must be representative of the state's population, and not be selected from a small group.
It's also worth noting some of the limits of a Constitutional Convention. The Courage Campaign believes that all social issues should be off-limits at a convention, such as marriage equality (that is best dealt with by the California Supreme Court, or by the voters if the Court upholds Prop 8). The Convention alone won't solve our state's financial woes.
But it's time that California's government once again adapted to the times. We need a constitution and a government responsive to the people and able to address the broad 21st century crisis, instead of a government that was deliberately broken and subject to a conservative veto. A Constitutional Convention won't solve all our problems, but it's a necessary step forward for California.
It doesn't come without risks, of course. But the time has come for progressives to assert a new set of ideas and a new agenda for California's future.
Over the flip I explain the process of calling, holding, and approving the proposals produced out of a Constitutional Convention.
One side effect of Leon Panetta's nomination to head the CIA is a growing lament from some quarters about the impact on reform in California. Panetta was the co-chair and leading public voice of California Forward, a centrist group dominated by business interests (there are two labor people on the board) and promoting Broderist attempts to fix California's problems that, by and large, avoided the core issues.
Unfortunately, Panetta's crusade as a reformer of California's dysfunctional government had only just begun. And his departure will leave a large void very difficult to fill, if not impossible....
[California Forward]'s early and outspoken support for Prop. 11 was particularly important because Panetta is a Democrat. Most of the Democratic establishment opposed the reform, fighting to keep the party's gerrymandering power in the California Legislature that it almost always controls.
As we tried to explain many times here, Prop 11 was a solution in search of a problem. Legislatively-drawn districts weren't the reason for the state's budget crisis, since most Californians have chosen to self-segregate by party. Nor does Prop 11 deal with the Republican extremism that is inherent to their movement. Funny how none of these "reformers" ever seem to call out Republicans who bear the primary responsibility for the budget crisis.
Panetta's other proposals follow this model, and espouse a centrism that veers at times into neo-Hooverism, a bipartisanship that in practice means implementing a Republican agenda. It's precisely the opposite of what California needs at this time. As Skelton described it back in June Panetta's plans included:
* Requiring new or expanded programs -- whether created by the Legislature or ballot initiative -- to contain a specific funding source. That could be either new taxes or money gleaned from another program that is eliminated.
* Regularly examining spending programs to determine whether they should be revised, reduced or rubbed out.
Skelton also mentions California Forward's support of open primaries, which courts have persistently ruled as unconstitutional and seem designed to weaken Democrats' ability to block Republican shock doctrines, not provide better reforms for the state.
What California really needs is loosened term limits, an end to the 2/3rds rule, and new tax revenues that solve the structural revenue shortfall. The centrist reforms Panetta championed won't get us where we need to go.
None of this is to say Leon Panetta is a bad guy - although I've not met him, I have known many people affiliated with his Panetta Institute of Public Policy at CSUMB who attest to his devotion to good government. I don't doubt that he was genuinely trying to improve the state. But his proposals were wide of the mark and were designed to satisfy a centrist ideology, not to make this state work again.
I hope Panetta is a success at the CIA - god knows that place needs reform. But his departure from the California reform movement may not be a disaster. Instead it may enable more fundamental changes, that get at the true problems we face, to get a wider audience.
Jon-Erik G. Storm is a candidate for State Assembly in the 33rd District in 2010. He is an attorney in Santa Maria, and lives with his wife, Lara, a 6th grade teacher, in Los Osos. The 33rd District is the least affordable place to live in California, something Jon-Erik is committed to changing. He is also committed to restoring representative democracy to California.
Speaker Karen Bass has proposed a Constitutional Amendment to restore democracy to California's broken budget process. If passed, this bill would put the question to a vote as a referendum.
If this bill passes, we would have the opportunity to vote for it in a possible special election this June. I would also ask that you support that referendum. In order to get it passed, however, this measure requires two-thirds support in both Houses of the Legislature. Three Republican Assemblymembers and two Republican Senators must join with our Leadership on this. Please respectfully ask for the support of your legislative representatives, regardless of party.
