May 20, 2009
FORUM COLUMN: California's Government Is Broken - But Could a Convention Fix It?
By Steve Mayer Thanks to the litigation over the validity of Proposition 8, most lawyers now know that there is adifference between amending and revising the California Constitution, even if the exact line of demarcation between the two remains unclear. But what they may not know is that some politicaland business leaders want to revise the California Constitution - for reasons that have nothing todo with Proposition 8 or same-sex marriage.It doesn't require a doctorate in political science to know that something is amiss with California'spolitical system. The state has an ongoing structural budget deficit. The Legislature and thegovernor had a difficult time enacting a plan to deal with the state's current budget crisis, andcould only agree by deferring some critical decisions to the electorate. And if the electoraterejects the budget compromise adopted several months ago, solutions to the state's budgetproblems are further away than ever.These largely undisputed facts add up to a single conclusion: California's system of governmentis seriously dysfunctional. Because a two-thirds vote is necessary to pass a budget or increaserevenue by raising taxes, a slender minority of the Legislature has veto power over these criticalissues. Term limits have led to a constantly shifting roster of short-term legislators supposedly atthe mercy of lobbyists with decades of insider knowledge about how state government works.And, of course, the state's inflexible revenue system has led to over-dependence on the incometax, which rises or falls dramatically at each turn of the business cycle.Given these multiple constitutional constraints, it's not surprising that the governor and other voices from (almost) all sides of the political spectrum have called for a new system of government. Under Article 18 of the California Constitution, a proposed revision of theConstitution must ultimately be approved by the electorate. But there are two routes to getting onthe ballot: a revision of the Constitution can be proposed either by a two-thirds vote of theLegislature or by a constitutional convention. And there is only one way to call a constitutionalconvention, the Legislature by a two-thirds vote puts a measure on the ballot to call for aconvention and the electorate approves it.The requirement that two-thirds of the Legislature must call for a constitutional convention posesa political problem. Since a constitutional convention might well eliminate the two-thirdsrequirement for adopting a budget (and, possibly, the two-thirds requirement for imposing newtaxes for the purpose of raising revenue), it's hard to see why the minority Republicans wouldagree to put a proposal for a constitutional convention on the ballot. But that has not stopped onemajor proponent of a new constitutional convention, the Bay Area Council, an organization of business leaders in the Bay Area. Although the council is reportedly lobbying the Legislature toput a constitutional convention proposal on the ballot, if that fails, it will try to put on the ballot twointerlinked measures: an initiative constitutional amendment authorizing the electorate to call aconstitutional convention and a measure actually calling a convention. If both measures pass, theconvention would go forward.But how would the delegates to a convention be chosen? The only bill currently in the legislaturethat addresses this issue, AB 4, envisions a complex process. Applicants would first be screenedby a nonpartisan committee of auditors to create a pool of 240 semifinalists. The semifinalistswould then be subject to strikes by legislative leaders to create a pool of 144 finalists, of which 32would be chosen by lot to be delegates. These delegates would choose 24 more, for a total of 56.
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