A California Republican

The tale of Jack and the Beanstalk should serve as a warning to anyone thinking that you can trade what you have for something magical, for a fix. Instead of keeping the cow, Jack got beans that took him into all sorts of problems. The same idea is behind the constitutional convention for California.

A constitutional convention is a bunch of magic beans. The proposal being floated would require all the amendments, the whole new constitution, to be put to an up or down vote by the citizens (those who vote) of California. Nothing is going to pass in that type of environment. Assume, for a moment, that the people who ended up drafting the constitution were non-biased people, not people of special interests, and people who really do want what is best for California. Even if their proposal came up for an up or down vote, it would go down. If there was no guaranteed education funding, the CTA and education lobbies would work hard to strike it down. If there was a gay marriage provision in the new cosntitution, conservatives would work to strike it down. With those tow issues alone you have united the right and left to strike down the new constitution.

So put away the idea of a constitutional convention. It is a bag of magic beans. Instead you need to focus on what you can get from the cow - from what we have now.

Reforms are needed. These reforms should be discussed and should be transparent. They should be written in such a way that the ordinary voter can understand what is going on.

Several reforms could be made that would help out with the situation in California. First of all, take the part-time legislature idea and run with it. Part of the problem with the legislature is that they are there too long, it is a full-time job, and they have too much spare time to think up bills that influence and nanny over the lives of Californians. reduce the time they are there and make the legislature work on what is important - the budget.

If the 2/3 requirement for passing the budget is going to be gotten rid of, then the 2/3 requirement for raising taxes needs to stand. If the majority wants responsibility for the spending priorities of the state, let them have it. They are  constitutionally required to pass a balanced budget. Do that, on time, and people will start to believe you might be worth the money you are earning. However, keep the 2/3 requirement for raising taxes, otherwise there are no checks on the majority party’s spending habits.

There should also be made, explicit, a law that prohibits fees from really being taxes, and prohibits taxes from being lawered to be replaced by fees so that other taxes can be raised. This is just the sort of political nonsense that is driving the call for reform. Make these tactics illegal, and prohibit them from being used. Then the majority party can really have control over the spending priorities of the state.

There should also be clear goals for programs. There are many state programs with no clear goals, and no clear objectives. Since the end is not clear, there is no way to measure the success of these programs. Therefore, there is no way to know if the money being spent is being used effectively. When you need to look at spending priorities, there needs to be a way to evaluate programs and their goals. This type of evaluation should be completed for each program that spends state funds, and then those who do not meet goals and expectations should be shut down, and the money spent elsewhere. This should be a process the state looks at every year, not just when they feel like it. It is this type of evaluation that makes a state successful at spending money and supporting the population. The hodgepodge of programs California has, some of which are successful and others of which are not, are no good for the state because they do not reach identifiable goals. For all the state knows, non-profits are doing a better job with these programs for less money, and it would make more sense to give out grants than run the programs ourselves. However, the only way to know this is to engage in evaluations.

There are other reforms out there that may or may not work. Budgeting for two years, instead of one, has been an idea that is floating around - as is relaxing term limits. Whether these reforms will be discussed remains to be seen.

The clear thing is that the system needs reform, and it is not going to come through a constitutional convention. So toss the constitutional convention Kool-Aid and work on looking for reforms that will work.

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