The Economist on California

The Economist, in its May 14 edition, did a story on California. Their tagline stated "As California ceases to function like a sensible state, a new constitution looks both necessary and likely." They try to make the case for a movement that may or may not be gaining steam which would ask voters to authorize a constitutional convention to reform structures, which many think are out-dated. Among the villains that the Economist mentions most prominently are the two thirds vote requirement for adopting a budget and for adopting new taxes, our brand of term limits and the number of special districts in the state.

I've watched my native state decline rather precipitously in the last couple of decades. Our economic growth has slowed. Government has come to a standstill. Ditto for creative thought. But as I read the article I thought - how out of touch can one magazine be? Are the economic problems facing the state, including the record deficit that we supposedly eliminated in February, the result of the two thirds vote? It is hard to make that case.

The article makes a bunch of assertions which are curious at best. For example, they seem to suggest that the voters of today are somehow less responsible than the voters when the Initiative was adopted. They argue that voters have "self sorted" themselves into highly partisan districts. Did the voters create the redistricting maps? They argue against the two thirds vote and the number of special districts and yet seem to ignore that those features have been around even when the state was held as a model. They yammer about the problems with term limits (presumably because of the lack of experience that the policy brings to the process yet support the idea of a constitutional convention chosen by a random selection method.

The article brings us back to two movements in the state - California Forward and the Bay Area Council - which are pressing for some fundamental reforms of our system. One is supportive of calling a constitutional convention to fix the ills in one fell swoop. The other approach is a more moderate one, relying on incrementalism. The leader of the state senate gets it. Daryl Steinberg comments for the article that the system was designed "to ensure that change occurs slowly."

The article points out that we've already made incremental steps toward reform - adopting a reform of redistricting and the possibility that the state would go back to an open primary mode are two important steps to bring more moderates into the process. Without those changes, even a constitutional convention would have little success in getting California back to governability.