JIM WUNDERMAN has saddled himself with quite a challenge: fixing a state that The Economist magazine called “ungovernable.” Wunderman and his group Repair California want to rewrite a state constitution that has previously been amended 512 times into a bloated, contradictory mess.

California’s governance process has followed a parallel evolution and now that the economy has tanked, all the nasty underpinnings are sticking out for the world to see. Ventura County Star Sacramento Bureau Chief Timm Herdt, a panelist at the Repair California event held Monday at California Lutheran University in Thousand Oaks, said he has watched one too many deals made in the wee hours of all-night budget sessions in the legislature: “Now they only have one trick in their book and that’s sleep deprivation.”

A Bay area businessman, Wunderman says he has been joined in his efforts by a cross section of political groups like Common Cause, The New America Foundation, The Courage Campaign, Orange County Lincoln Club and Joint Venture – Silicon Valley Networks. Others are coming on board.

With so much contributing to the state’s dysfunction, agreeing on what to fix may take some doing. For example, the Commission on the 21st Century Economy is currently locked in a partisan battle on tax reform. But Wunderman outlined the following possible issues for a state constitutional convention:

• Eliminating the 2/3 requirement to pass a budget (but not necessarily the 2/3 to pass a tax increase.) California is the only state to require a 2/3 vote for both.
• Revising the fiscal inequities which exist between Sacramento and local governments because of Prop. 13. “They didn’t exactly intend for what’s happened to happen,” Wunderman said of the drain on funds for cities and counties.
• Election reform. “It’s a special-interest controlled mob up in Sacramento right now. … The short terms in the Assembly have given it rookie-league status so they operate at the behest of special interests and staff, the only ones who have experience.”
• Reforming the ballot initiative process. “It wasn’t intended to become what it’s become. It’s been taken over by special interests.” Initiatives of the future could have sunset clauses and a requirement to reveal economic impact.
• Requiring performance measures for established programs.

THE CURRENT SYSTEM SPECIFIES that the legislature must call for a Constitutional Convention. But Repair California wants to bypass them and go directly to the voters with it. Once the Attorney General’s Office issues titles and summaries for a proposed ballot measure, the group has only 150 days to gather 800,000 signatures to qualify it for the November 2010 ballot. The convention would take place in 2011 and the delegates’ reform package would be voted on in November of 2012. 

How would delegates be chosen? Herb Gooch, a political science professor at CLU, and one of the day’s panelists, told me he thought they should be selected by Assembly district with all potential candidates voted on by the public.

While seasoned Sacramento hands like Herdt believe special-interest lawsuits will torpedo these efforts, the folks behind Repair California remain optimistic. If the packed room on Monday was any indication, the will is there.

“The people have the power to change this and nothing can stop them,” Wunderman said.

Marie Lakin is a community activist and writes the Making Waves blog for the Ventura County Star

The bleeding mess of California’s budget crisis begins with the state Constitution, last rewritten in 1879, and amended 512 times since then.

Jim Wunderman of the Bay Area Council wrote this op-ed, and inspired Repair California.

California’s government suffers from drastic dysfunction – our prisons overflow, our water system teeters on collapse, our once proud schools are criminally poor, our financing system is bankrupt, our democracy produces ideologically extreme legislators who can pass neither budget nor reforms, and we have no recourse in the system to right these wrongs. Drastic times call for drastic measures.

It is our duty to declare that our California government is not only broken, it has become destructive to our future. Therefore, are we not obligated to nullify our government and institute a new one?

Saturday I attended one townhall meeting to discuss process.

I encourage every thinking California to attend one of the six townhalls scheduled around the state including Orange County on August 24th by Repair California. It’s a fascinating group, started by a Northern California Business Council, but heavily influenced by some of the best progressive thinkers, including the Velasquez Institute, Common Cause, and a bevy of other good government organizations. The event I attended was hosted by the Courage Campaign, California’s 700,000 member progressive alliance.

Kicking off the session were endorsements of the idea of a Constitutional Convention by LA’s Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, the City Controller Wendy Gruel, and the eloquent President of the City Council, Eric Garcetti. It’s not hard to recognize a problem when your state is the butt of jokes for late night talks, issuing IOU’s with an expat Austrian action hero attempting a radical shock doctrine final solution to the budget problems.

The well-intentioned progressive reforms to fix the problems of the last gilded age have been hijacked time and again until our Constitution is the roadkill of governing documents. Structurally, the requirements of a 2/3 vote in the legislature to approve either a budget or any revenue increase allow a minority to hold the state hostage. The initiative process, once envisioned as the citizen’s right to over-rule the government, has been cynically abused by the wealthiest special interests, including the apartment owners and business interests who hobbled the state with Proposition 13, which was sold to prevent seniors from being forced from their homes, but had dozens of pernicious consequences, including loss of local government control.

As Antonio Gonzalez of the Velasquez Institute noted, maybe the legislature will fix the problem. Maybe some combination of single-issue initiatives can get lucky. Maybe pigs will fly. I wouldn’t bet on any of these, so we might as well start doing the heavy lifting, figuring out the best way to call a Constitutional Convention, and how to choose delegates who will generate a new governance structure that will meet the approval of voters and allow our legislators to govern the state.

The Heart Of The Matter – Harnessing a Voter Revolt

These times are so uncertain

There’s a yearning undefined

And people filled with rage

At the heart of the matter, the essence of calling a convention, is the question of how to select the delegates.

It’s interesting to note that the 1879 California Con Con was inspired by a nativist revolt to deny rights to Chinese immigrants, and as one speaker at the townhall asked, “How do we trust Californians who passed Proposition 8 and Prop 187 and are now trying to take rights away from children born in this country whose parents aren’t citizens?”

And can we risk duplicating the gridlock in the legislature that is dominated by partisans whose true constituency is the 17% of the electorate who will allow them to win a party primary in a gerrymandered district?

Galloping to the rescue is the New America Foundation with a powerful, proven concept of a citizen assembly, randomly chosen with five delegates from each of California’s 80 assembly district, a 400 person sample large enough to be representative. The initiative that calls the convention can define an open process that adds webcasting, blogs, social networking, and hearings to build a consensus. Citizen delegates will earn a stipend so they can take a leave of absence from work, have a budget to hire the experts, and travel around the state in hearings and meetings in a reality show that will actually speak to our most profound realities.

But the truth is, average Californians are the only ones who can lead our state out of the quagmire of special interests and partisanship that currently is paralyzing it.  That’s because average Californians bring a special quality that too many incumbents and the political class in general do not have:  a pragmatic desire to solve the state’s problems, regardless of ideology, partisanship or career self-interest.

I spoke strongly in favor of this concept, with a deep, abiding faith in the wisdom of a cross-section of Californians working in common purpose. From a group this size, leaders will arise who will speak with eloquence and common sense. Most of all they’ll do what true leaders do best – listen to each other in an attempt to find common ground.

And as they return to their districts from an eight month process, they will be able to claim a legitimacy and trust that our legislature has lost, exactly what voters need to vote for change.

Another key concept that needs to be stressed is the fact that the Citizen’s Constitutional Convention will be limited to issues of governance, strictly enjoined by the initiative that calls the convention from wading into divisive social issues that are not involved in reforming the governance of the state.

And for those of you who clicked the links, here’s a bonus – the beautiful and gracious India Arie.