(more thoughts on changes to the constitution. – promoted by Brian Leubitz)
If we are going to have a constitutional convention, I do not think we should be timid in our ideas for reforming and restructuring the state. I know many want to limit the convention because they fear there will be ideas adopted which do not fit into a progressive ideology, But I don’t think we should approach this with fear, but with a real view for a total restructuring of the state government. I believe we should think outside the box, even way outside the box and be willing to not only look at reforming such things as the 2/3’s vote requirement, but go for the guts of how this state is run.
If we think outside the box, we can get some real reform, not just piecemeal tinkering.
Here are some of my thoughts.
1. A unicameral legislature. Since the one-man, one-vote ruling of the US Supreme Court, the two houses are superfluous. They do not even do well as checking each other. They are simply two places to have the same argument. A single house with 100 members or so is adequate.
2. Eliminate counties. Those services which counties provide such as children services, health services, etc. can be provided by regional agencies, similar to transportation agencies. Law enforcement and emergency services can be done through joint power authorities. The courts should be run by the state. For municipal services (land use, building codes, etc.) in unincorporated areas can be handled by municipal service districts.
3. With the exception of school districts, eliminate all special districts. Few, if any of them, are supported by local property taxes anymore, but are mainly funded by fees. This has untethered them from local voters/property owners. Let the state or regional agencies handle them.
4. Significantly reduce the power of Sacramento in the operations of local school districts. Let the school districts run far more autonomously, like cities do. The Education Code should read more like the provisions of the government code that relate to cities.
5. Require all school districts to be K-12 districts.
6. Change community colleges from local districts and make them a statewide system, like the UC’s and the Cal States. This is more in keeping with the 1960 Master Plan for Higher Education.
7. Return the initiative and referendum process to its original intent by simply making it illegal to pay or compensate anyone in any way to gather signatures.
8. No matter what is done to the sales tax after the Parsky Commission proposals are debated, eliminate the municipal share of the sales tax or the NBRT tax (assuming the cities would get part of this if it is adopted and the sales tax eliminated). Give the cities a share of the income tax paid to employees in their jurisdictions. Right now the billions spend each year by redevelopment agencies is sued primarily to subsidize retailers to get the sales tax. If the cities get a share of the income tax, these billions will be spent subsidizing jobs and employment.
9. Eliminate all previously approved voter budget directives from the Constitution. Prohibit the ability of the voters to include such directives in the Constitution in the future.
….let’s do it.
The state already directly runs all of the Courts and has for about 10 years.
Please take these thoughts as brainstorming…
While I like the idea of a unicameral legislature, is 100 enough? That’s roughly 330,000 people per district. I think you’d want a district sized to the point where it is reasonable for someone to know their legislator if they want to make an effort. That might also help reduce the power of lobbyists? That may result in a large legislature, though. Maybe instead of a number of legislators, a fixed maximum size of a legislative district, and let the legislature size float?
There is a lot you mention on school districts; I’ve thought about that from my varied experiences. I moved around a lot as a child, so I lived where there was a single, county-wide school district (Prince Georges County, Maryland) and where there were separate districts per town (New Jersey.) I see there are a lot of benefits to consolidation — you don’t need to duplicate resources across each school if the school districts are larger, they can get the benefit of bulk purchases for supplies, text books, etc. On the other hand, I do understand how parents can feel there is a large monolithic bureaucracy when the district is too large. I’m not sure there is a good answer here.
One thing I’ve observed, though, is the power Texas has in setting the content of school books, via their system. One benefit of some centralization might be to offset that in Sacramento. That may not require any changes to school district boundaries, but if we had a central approval location for text books that are allowed in California schools that had similar clout to the Texas board, that might counter some of the anti-science we’ve seen coming out of there, and that would benefit education in and out of California.
As for the initiative process… I’m not sure if 50% should be the threshold for passing initiatives. A higher number should be considered.
Not only should signature gatherers for initiatives be uncompensated, but all signature gathering for electoral processes, such as ballot placement and recall should also be uncompensated. Signature gatherers should also be restricted to those eligible to participate in the election. (No Mormon Church busing in volunteers from Arizona, for example.)
This might not survive a Buckley vs Valeo challenge, but I’d change campaign finance laws to restrict donations to those who are eligible to vote in a given election.
As for eliminating any previous voter budget directives — I suspect any new Constitution will purge what has come before, with the exception of a clause honoring the previous state liabilities. That will include budget liabilities. But as for future directives, they won’t apply.
I thought Ahnuld the Stupid was gonna blow ’em all up? What happened?
My out-of-state perspective (hope you don’t mind) is that CA should just start over with a new constitution that has no policies (how much to tax, how to tax, how to spend, how much to spend, etc.) in it. The VT constitution is pretty much limited to rights, powers, and processes. The US Constitution is fairly clean, too. A few policies like running a post office and setting weights and measures are included, but at the time it made sense to have them so each state didn’t go it’s own way. The Constitution of Virginia is less clean (natural oyster beds?) but still allows for a fair amount of flexibility.
I don’t think counties should be eliminated, but they should be redrawn to better reflect economic interconnections and physical geography. San Bernardino, for instance, makes very little sense. Balkanization within counties should be addressed, too. The City of Industry is probably the best example of this. Virginia gives a lot of power to its counties, and limits what sub-county entities (towns) can do. (Cities in Virginia are independent of counties – not recommended.)
I’m curious about the benefit of number 5:
What are you trying to accomplish with it?
Part of the problem of anybody dealing with local government is dealing with overlapping jurisdictions. I suspect that someone living in an incorporated area might have to deal with a municipal, a county, and perhaps more than one regional authority, depending upon the issue. This can’t be good. In general, I’m not that sympathetic to people who whine about federal regulation. But I’m a lot more sympathetic with people who have to deal with local government, especially small business people. They often have a legitimate beef about this.
I’d like a better sense as to what the “pedigree” of the county-elimination idea. To some extent, it seems to indicate that counties are “too small” to handle certain kind of regional issues, such as transportation. So regional boards have been created to cope with this deficiency. To the extent that we create an entirely new layer of government authority, it isn’t clear to me that this is a good thing. Why not make the counties larger instead, so that their borders better match the nature decision-making boundaries of a geographic area?
Do you have a source for this idea, such as an academic study?
1. I’m down with a unicameral legislature, but why not also reap the benefits of smaller districts by folding the assembly and senate into a single, say 201 (I like having an odd number to avoid the need for executive tie-breaking) seat legislature? That way, your voter-to-rep ratio is 84,000 to one, which is much better than at present.
2. I don’t see any particular reason for eliminating counties. You need some form of regional government between the state and the cities, so if the issue is size or boundary lines or number, that seems more easily done through redrawing the lines. Importantly, it preserves the elected nature – the problem with having everything run through authorities is that they aren’t democratically representative, and people need to be able to directly hold someone accountable for basic services.
4. I’m always suspicious of calls for local autonomy for school districts – this has historically been a major vector for class and race segregation and inequality. Education is one of those things where local considerations actually shouldn’t be taken into account.
6. I agree with you there.
8. A good idea – although I think “sued” is a typo.
9. I’m not sure this wouldn’t be throwing some important babies out with some unimportant bathwater.
Rather than set at a certain number there should be an adjustment of the number with every census, so the population stays the same in each district (100,000 is
probably a good size, as you can walk to the district and
contact 10-20% of the voters without ruining your life).
The US Congress used to be adjust suchly until it was frozen at 435 in the 20’s.
Consider an opposing view:
–BENJAMIN FRANKLIN, “Queries and Remarks Respecting Alterations in the Constitution of Pennsylvania,” The Writings of Benjamin Franklin, ed. Albert H. Smith, vol. 10, pp. 55-56 (1907, reprinted 1970).
You should ask yourself what you really accomplish by changing the legislature from two houses to one. The primary thing is a decrease in the number of powerful individuals. Is this a good thing?
Isn’t this a perfect example of something that doesn’t belong in the Constitution at all?
According to Democracy in California: Politics and Government in the Golden State, California’s constitution is one of the longest in the world. That suggest that it contains a lot of things that belong in legislation, not the constitution. Your suggestion sounds to me like it should be left to the legislature.
I can’t believe this discussion of a Constitutional Convention has made it to the BEE.
SEE http://www.sacbee.com/opinion/…
Are things REALLY getting serious on this issue?
Whatever comes out of any Constitutional convention, or other re-write process, should be plain English. The US Constitution, while not perfect, is something that can be read and understood by someone with a basic civics education (they can argue about what the amendments mean, but the basic structure is well understood.) The new constitution in this state should seek to emulate that clarity.
1. As currently constituted, the Senate is a largely superfluous element. It’s hard to make the argument that the longer terms have made it a more reflective and deliberative body than the Assembly. The one big advantage is that, by and large, Senators are more experienced in legislative matters than Assembly members, but that’s an argument against term limits, not in favor of a second house. One idea suggested that would make sense in keeping the Senate would be to have the second house elected either statewide or regionally by proportional representation, while keeping the Assembly elected by districts, and expand the size. That might give them a different perspective worth keeping.
2. I am opposed to this idea, and the related notion that regional agencies should be driven by “experts”. In my experience living in one of the smaller counties in the Bay Area, the regional districts that exist tend to either ignore us or attempt to force policy changes relevant to the urban core and not in line with our goals. The current system creates a more responsive government. I do not believe for a moment that a Sacramento bureaucracy would care at all about a problem with welfare services in Solano County. Elected Solano County officials, on the other hand, have a powerful incentive to solve the problem before the next election.
3. I won’t argue with this, either. Most special districts in Solano County could just as easily be administered by the county or joint powers authorities. If the county board doesn’t want direct authority over (say), the cemetery district, they can appoint a board or commission to handle it.
4 & 5. The entire educational system needs overhauling. At the state level, the tangle between the Superintendent of Public Instruction, the Board of Education, and the Department of Education is a Gordian knot. I would agree that consolidation of districts makes sense — there are entirely too many “districts” with one or two schools — but there should be a sensible upper limit. Creating a county-wide district here would create a system with over 100 schools, and resulting layers of bureaucracy that would erase any savings from consolidation, as well as limiting parents’ sense of local control.
6. I’m not sure I agree, given the multidimensional nature of community colleges. Not only do they offer academic coursework that links to the Master Plan, but a variety of technical & vocational programs for those seeking to enter the work force, and wide array of courses targeting the broader community who wish to learn specific skills or explore particular subjects. Certainly, there needs to be a greater focus at alignment with the Master Plan, but the local control component is also essential.
7. Agreed.
8. While I agree with coming up with a formula that ends the fiscalization of land use, i’m not sure about this one. On the one hand, it would promote the creation of jobs, but on the other hand, it would overly benefit employment centers like San Francisco & Sacramento with a large commuter-based workforce. Indeed, it would create an incentive for cities to develop office parks full of workers who were there 8:00 to 5:00, but didn’t need parks, schools, or roads (except between the office park and the freeway).
9. This needs reflection. Prop 98 has caused its problems, but it has provided some protection for schools in bad budget years.
If we want out of the box ideas, why aren’t we looking at more developed democracies like European democracy? Proportional Representation is highly successful, and it would work wonders in a state like California where the majority of voters do not identify with either of the major parties. The problem in California, at its roots, is the Californian voter. The average Californian does not trust our government. If we want to win back the Californian so that he/she trusts their government and their state again, then we should have a system of democracy that allows all viewpoints representation in the legislature. While an instant run-off system is nice, it does not solve the problem with our outmoded republic–namely that there is no place for majoritarianism in deciding who should comprise the legislature. All viewpoints should be represented and not just those that win a majority in arbitrarily drawn districts. Let the deliberation take place at the top in the legislature, not at the bottom where people are unlikely to ever change their political ideologies. That is how a true republic is supposed to function.
Perhaps the constitutional convention would be a good time to split California into two or three states to increase from 2 to 4 or 6 senators? This would also increase our electoral votes, and make California more relevant in Presidential elections?