The LookOut Letters to the Editor
Speak Out!  E-mail us at : Editor@surfsantamonica.com

Call for a California Constitutional Convention?

By Michael Feinstein

How can a place as blessed as California, with its rich cultural diversity, natural/environmental beauty and the eighth largest economy in the world, be in a state of almost perpetual crisis?

Attempts to answer this question have gone beyond considering individual remedies to raise the prospect of the state’s first Constitutional Convention in more than 130 years. This topic will be the subject of lively discussion at a free public informational forum, Friday evening July 17th, at the Broad Stage in Santa Monica, 1310 11th St. at Santa Monica Boulevard.

With the state issuing IOUs and the legislature being late for the 24th time in the last 33 years in approving a budget, it's hard to see the state’s fiscal crisis simply as a function of poor decisions by individual legislators and/or the result of the ups and downs of the state’s economic cycles. Rather, it is widely thought across the political spectrum that the state suffers from what is called a "structural deficit," i.e. an ongoing situation where the state’s revenue streams and expenses simply do not match.

At the same time, the state also appears to face a "democratic deficit," leading to under-representation of California’s political diversity in the legislature combined with gridlock in Sacramento, or what The Economist magazine recently termed "dysfunctional government."

To the degree that California’s problems are structural, what is the answer? Changes to the state’s constitution can happen either through constitutional amendments placed on the ballot by the legislature or by citizens through the initiative process, or via a constitutional convention. The difference between the two is that by law, what comes through the legislature or the initiative process is limited to addressing a single subject, whereas a constitutional convention can recommend symbiotic changes in an integrated, comprehensive manner.

The last time California had such a convention was in 1878-79, when the state had less than 800,000 people and was far different economically, socially and politically than it is today. Since then, the constitution has been individually amended and revised more than 500 times, the result being a cacophony of ideas that may have made sense at the time they were approved, but now often clash with each other to produce an almost ungovernable state. Perhaps now its time to start over to achieve a form of government that fits the realities and needs of today’s California.

A grassroots, statewide movement to achieve just that has arisen across California since last fall, when an opinion piece in the San Francisco Chronicle by the Bay Area Council’s Jim Wunderman about last year’s state budget being late helped launch the constitutional convention movement, including a group called Repair California, which has helped convene a series of town halls and forums across the state, to discuss how this might come about. What has arisen has been a focus on the need to reform the state’s governance, election and budget processes, combined with addressing the fiscal relationship between the state and local government (including schools).

Friday’s forum will address these questions and others, including how might convention delegates be chosen. Doors open at 6:15, with a video by Sacramento Bee Columnist Dan Walters at 6:30 on "why a Constitutional Convention."

Santa Monica College Trustee Nancy Greenstein opens the program at 7pm, followed by speakers including Wunderman, Assemblywoman Julia Brownley (D-Santa Monica), Robert Stern, president of the Center for Governmental Studies, Steve Hill and Mark Paul of the New America Foundation, Los Angeles City Councilmember Bill Rosendahl and Santa Monica City Councilmember Pam O’Connor.

The California Constitution gives the legislature the ability by a 2/3 vote to place before the voters whether there should be a Constitutional Convention. If passed, "the Legislature shall provide for the convention,” after which the Convention would meet and the changes it recommends be placed again before the voters as a single measure.

This is how the 1878-79 Convention was convened,and how the state’s original 1849 Constitution was revised. Today with the legislature unlikely to place such a measure before the voters, a new path is being explored that would involve two simultaneous November 2010 ballot measures – one to give ‘the people’ the power to call for a convention themselves through a ballot measure, and one that would authorize a specific convention with a specific focus. If both passed, the convention could convene in 2011, and its recommendations on the ballot as early as November 2012.

The deadline for submittal to submit language to the Attorney General for ballot measures that might appear on the November 2010 ballot is September 25th, making Friday evening’s event a unique opportunity for local community members to attend, submit questions and written comment, and provide further feedback on the Repair California website at www.repaircalifornia.org/your_ideas.php. The forum is co-sponsored by Repair California and Santa Monica College and will be co-moderated by Greenstein and myself. For more information, go to www.repaircalifornia.org/santamonica.

Michael Feinstein is a former Santa Monica Mayor and City Council member

Lookout Logo footer image
Copyright 1999-2009 surfsantamonica.com. All Rights Reserved.