Capitol Letters
Thursday, June 18, 2009
It’s a rule of thumb in politics that you’re really in trouble when you become fodder for late-night comedy. So it’s not a big surprise that California’s budget meltdown was the subject of a recent special report on The Daily Show. “We must sell California to the Church of Scientology,” thundered John Hodgman, who plays a dork reporter to Jon Stewart’s anchor man.
Less amusingly, California’s horror show increasingly is receiving more substantive national and global notice as the budget mess deepens, including a long feature in the Economist appropriately headlined “The Ungovernable State.” “A good outcome is no longer possible,” it ominously concluded of our budget woes, adding that, “One way or the other, Californians will have to begin discussing how to fix their broken state.”
Capitol Letters
The magazine’s bottom line sums up the great California political paradox of 2009: As the Capitol stares into the abyss, the impending threat of financial default has energized a broad new push for political and economic reform, which could become the most vigorous since that led by Gov. Hiram Johnson a century ago. Largely below the radar now, several reform efforts that will help reshape California’s political landscape are gathering strength:
Taxes: The Commission on the 21st Century Economy, a blue-ribbon panel appointed by Gov. Arnold and liberal Assembly Speaker Karen Bass, is due within the next few weeks to make recommendations on sweeping changes in the tax system aimed at spurring economic growth and stabilizing state revenue collections. A vestige of Industrial Age policymaking, the current tax structure mirrors boom-and-bust business cycles, leading to the last decade’s series of feast-or-famine budget years.
Initiatives: Several ballot measures will be aimed at changing mechanics of state government that have contributed to gridlock.
The passage of Proposition 11 last November will take away the power of legislators to draw their own districts and give it to an independent commission beginning with the census of 2010.
The passage of Proposition 11 last November will take away the power of legislators to draw their own districts and give it to an independent commission beginning with the census of 2010. The Legislature’s gerrymandering of districts in recent reapportionments, the once-a-decade process of redrawing political districts, has played a major role in the partisan polarization in Sacramento.
Next year, voters will decide another constitutional amendment to create a series of open primaries; this would change the current partisan system by setting up general election contests between the two highest vote-getters in a primary, regardless of party, which backers say will benefit political moderates and reduce support for candidates on the ideological extremes.
Next year’s ballot will also likely include one or more initiatives to dump the two-thirds requirement for budget votes and perhaps for taxes as well; backers of such measures say current rules requiring supermajority votes have resulted in the tyranny of the minority, as conservative Republicans have held sway on fiscal issues, despite big Democratic majorities in both legislative houses.
Governance: California Forward — a nonpartisan group backed by a collection of blue-chip nonprofit organizations, including foundations directed by the Haas, Hewlett, Irvine, and Packard families — is developing a package of proposals to reform the state’s process of governance, including two-year budgeting, performance management measures, a sunset review of government codes, a rainy-day reserve fund, and a “pay-go” requirement for new legislation or initiatives to identify sources of funding or cuts.
Constitutional Convention: The most dramatic reform push, led by the corporate members of the Bay Area Council in Northern California, is a plan to convene a state constitutional convention, the first since 1879. California’s constitution is longer and more complex than the federal government’s, not to mention the nation of India, and convention backers want to wipe clean the slate and reorganize the government in a rational way. The council has sponsored a bill, now pending in the Legislature, to put the convention proposal before voters; if it fails, the council intends to mount an initiative campaign for 2010.
Gov. Schwarzenegger was swept into office in the recall election of 2003, vowing to reform and restructure state government. His administration has failed dismally to do this. The Capitol’s dysfunctional structure has proven much stronger than the action-hero rhetoric that has been his main weapon in attacking it.
The current political distress afflicting Sacramento has set the stage for a renewed effort — driven by good government and grassroots reformers rather than the personalities of individual politicians — to find effective ways and means of fundamentally changing and improving the entrenched and stalemated political structure.
“The seriousness of the problem has reached a crescendo,” said Jim Wunderman, CEO of the Bay Area Council. “The public is making a statement, loud and clear, that they expect action.”