People seemed to really engage with this post about a Constitutional convention, so I wanted to follow up with some of my thoughts for what a convention could tackle and what it could look like. As it happens I attended a town hall meeting about a proposed ConCon a couple weeks ago in Santa Monica, featuring Bob Stern of the Center for Governmental Studies, Jim Wunderman of the Bay Area Council, Steven Hill and Mark Paul of the New America Foundation, Asm. Julia Brownley (AD-41), Santa Monica Mayor Pam O'Connor and LA City Councilman Bill Rosendahl.
At the root, a Constitutional convention must concern itself with restoring confidence in government. Right now, that's at an all-time low, especially after budget agreements hashed out in secret that defy the will of the people and an erosion in the public trust in lawmakers to do the right thing in Sacramento. Government is not responsive, in fact in many cases it cannot Constitutionally be responsive to the popular will. The institutions have become paralyzed and captive to special interest lobbying. We have ten lobbyists for every legislator in Sacramento. And we have turned over the reins to a new branch of government, the ballot, and anything significant must be mandated by a vote of the people. As Julia Brownley, now in her second term, said, "Government structure is broken and we need to fix it... I didn't understand until I set foot in the Legislature the paralysis and gridlock that kills the system." I think Sen. Mark DeSaulnier, who is carrying Constitutional convention legislation in the Senate, put it well when he said that California remains at the vanguard with anything that can be accomplished on a majority-vote basis. Anything with a 2/3 threshold, in other words anything fiscal, is a mess. And it needs to be solved.
So how would a convention, the first of its kind since 1879, be structured? (flip)
The Bay Area Council has been promoting an effort to convene a constitutional convention, through legislation or through initiative. Their most recent draft of the language has been spreading around, and suffice it to say there are some problems:
The main group advocating for an overhaul of California's constitution is circulating draft initiative language that would bar a constitutional convention from changing the property tax portions of Proposition 13.
The 2,000 word draft document has been distributed to numerous stakeholders and experts by the Bay Area Council, a San Francisco-based business group that has been outspoken in calling for an overhaul of the state's governing document.
A spokesman for the group, John Grubb, said the document is still going through a revision process. But he does not expect the language about Prop. 13 and property taxes to change. (CapWeekly 6/22/09)
If we are to truly reform California, then let's cut the bullshit. There should be no sacred cows. We need to build a system of governance built truly from the ground up, or it becomes unclear whether the project is worth doing at all. If we are going to have poison pills from our current constitution built in from Day 1, what hope do we really have of building a workable system?
The BAC's reasoning is pretty traditional stuff really, they are worried of Howard Jarvis' ghost and a few "senior groups." If these supposed senior groups were really looking out for seniors, they would join the California Alliance for Retired Americans in calling for a fair and just budget that provides for services for the elderly, not a system that merely traffics in truism in how seniors are terrified of losing their homes.
The fact is Prop 13 was never about seniors losing their homes, it was merely a powerful political ploy to lower the taxes of corporations. And that is precisely what it has done. Howard Jarvis himself was before the Prop 13 extravaganza, just another apartment owners' group attack dog. Prop 13 was really pure genius on the apartment and commercial property owners' part. They get to use shell games and transfer their properties in whatever way they want, and never have to reassess their property. It's a pretty slick little system, and it is why most their is a growing movement to fix prop 13. In fact, San Francisco's assessor-recorder, Phil Ting, is pushing a Close the Loophole effort to split the commercial and residential property tax rolls.
But the Bay Area Council really can't be treated as some savior group. It's not some creature of the grassroots, it is merely an organization of large bay are companies. And that they want to preserve Prop 13, shouldn't really be all that shocking. But if progressives are going to work on this effort, we must work to ensure that all options really on the table. Cut the third rail fears and just work from the ground up. Otherwise, it might just be more wise to pursue other avenues to reform.
The Bay Area Council has been pushing for a Constitutional Convention for a while now. In the wake of the disaster that was yesterday, they are launching a new website, RepairCalifornia.org, combined with a series of events across the state to encourage the Legislature to put measures on the ballot for a constitutional convention. The group, which is a collection of mostly tech companies from the bay area, also says if the Legislature doesn't put them on the ballot, they'll do it through signatures.
The events begin in Sacramento this morning, and will continue throughout the state.
Update by Robert: I am currently in Sacramento to participate in an 11:30 press conference BAC has put together. I'm representing the Courage Campaign, which has supported the Constitutional Convention concept since our members expressed overwhelming support for it back in September. It seems increasingly obvious that a Constitutional Convention is necessary to save this state. It's time we moved beyond "if" to "how" and "when."
For a couple of years the fact that California is ungovernable has been plain to see to anybody who really pays attention. That is why you get calls for a constitutional convention from business groups like the Bay Area Council and from progressive groups like the Courage Campaign. We need fundamental change in our constitution. We need to fix the initiative system and the restore the underlying balance of power that should exist in a modern representative democracy.
Today we get a slew of articles in the mainstream media, saying, that well, perhaps California is ungovernable. Follow me over the flip.
