There was nothing of substance really accomplished today, except for Asm. Mike Davis making everybody a smidge uncomfortable with his address to the Assembly describing what, ahem, a lot of men around the world felt for Farah Fawcett. So, the Legislature will be back in session tomorrow trying to either get the Senate and Arnold to agree to some temporary fix to avoid IOUs or an actual budget solution. Note that St. Abel doesn’t have any big news for the twittersphere.
But, as the Senate is unable to agree to the Assembly’s bipartisan IOU avoidance measures or come up with their own solution, a bigger question comes to mind: Why do we have a Senate? Now that’s not to say that I prefer one body to the other, it’s not like there’s a huge difference. And that’s exactly the point. There isn’t much difference.
To be precise, there are a few minor differences. The Senate approves the Governor’s nominees. And, well, that’s about all for matters of substance.
At one point, the Senate had a very different makeup. It was a once a one-per-county thing, with LA County citizens receiving about 1/500 of the representation as some rural counties. But Reynolds v. Sims changed all that by striking down state legislative systems with unequal representation.
At this point, Senate districts are basically just two Assembly districts, or gerrymandered approximations thereof. Assembly districts themselves are too large, but Senate districts are completely unmanageable. They are substantially larger than Congressional districts, and even the most present Senators can’t get to all the events in the District.
While perhaps not the most pressing reform, it is about time that we consider going with the unicameral legislature. Even if we kept the same number of legislators, we could have substantially smaller districts and allow the legislators more contact with their constituents.
Furthermore, it would reduce some of the legislative merry go round if done in concert with some sort of term limits reform. While I would prefer the elimination of all term limits, you could argue that perhaps allowing legislators to serve 12 years in one chamber would make for a more effective legislature.
So, if we ever do get around to that Constitutional Convention, how about we get to fixing problem # 487 with California’s government?
but if I have to choose, let’s lose the damn Senate.
At least the US Senate implements the (dubious) power-balancing plan between popular will and the states. Ours just serves as employment for jerks like Don Perata.
There is so much stupid that it can’t fit in one room. Same reason Democrats can’t have a joint meeting of the caucuses. Only way it would work is by meeting outside.
How about no more than 3 consecutive assembly terms, and no more than 2 state senate terms, but you can come back after taking a break or forced retirement. where you could come back in 2 years or 4 years for the state senate.
We would promote institutional experience, but also allow for some turnover.
I am also in support of using Proportional representation and use maybe a party list system. Maybe we can elect the state senate based on Party list system like how they elect European Parliament members.
Unicameral legislature in state government always makes more sense. Especially when you see the shenanigans that the state senate causes in say…New York.
triple the size of the assembly, and allot one third or a quarter of the seats proportionally by party. that then halves or thirds the size of assembly districts, and gives geographically or otherwise implausible constituencies (redding democrats, san francisco republicans, log cabin republicans) a shot at representation along with minority parties or interests.
no term limits on district-elected assembly (if your constituents like you, they should get to keep you), but perhaps one on party-alloted PR reps is worth it to to thin the ranks of the party hacks out. also, given that i’d also like to see us ditch the wholly redundant governor (and the whole ridiculous heroic concept of “leadership”), perhaps a limit on speaker of the assembly and other leadership is worth having as well, lest the dread willie brown come back and become california’s supreme leader for life.