The System is Broken
With the resounding defeat of the Governor’s and Legislator’s proposals on Tuesday, it is clear that California’s governance system is broken. California has a budget crisis, healthcare crisis, water crisis, education crisis and a prison crisis to name a few. Yes despite the ideologically extreme Legislators with lowest voter approval ever, the problem is not the people but the system. Can the system be fixed with incremental changes or do we need to a major overhaul of the entire system?
Incremental Change
A non-profit organization, California Forward, has been formed by several major California foundations after they realized their investments in improving education, health care and the environment were ineffective due to structural fiscal and political challenges facing California. Their three main objectives are:
- Leaders must be rewarded and accountable for making improvements.
- Redistricting reforms need to be implemented to restore trust and confidence in state government and improve legislative accountability.
- Candidates and incumbents need to be encouraged to and rewarded for representing their districts, not major donors or party leaders.
- Legislators need to have the chance to build the relationships and expertise to solve big problems.
- Fiscal systems must be reliable, efficient and focus on results.
- Multi-year budgeting to reduce short-term gimmicks.
- “Pay as you go” to make tough choices and burden our children with debt.
- Manage revenue in good times to get through the bad times.
- Results-based budgeting to improve performance of vital programs and restore public trust.
- Tax reforms that reliably provide adequate revenue at the state and local levels.
- Government must be closer to the people.
- Local governments need to assume more responsibility and authority over programs, as well as the revenue and budget systems that support their success.
- Regional approaches need to local governments to work cooperatively to solve problems they cannot solve themselves, from air pollution to poverty.
Major Overhaul
The Bay Area Council is a business-sponsored, public-policy advocacy organization for the nine-county Bay Area counties. The Council proactively advocates for a strong economy, a vital business environment, and a better quality of life for everyone who lives here.
They believe California’s system of government is fundamentally broken. As a result the group is proposing a California Constitution Convention.
They have identified four issues that the Convention could address:
- Budget Reform
- Election Reform
- State-local fiscal relationship reform
- Government oversight mechanism
A Little History
The constitution was written in 1849. The current constitution is the product of the 1878-1879 Constitutional Convention. While there was a citizen advisory vote to convene a constitutional convention in 1930s, the Legislature failed to act. In the 60s and 70s, Constitutional Revision Commission shrunk the size of the constitution but there were no big changes. The 90’s recession inspired Constitutional Revisions Commission proposed changes to the following:
- The two-thirds legislative vote requirement to pass budget bills.
- Revenue and expenditure limits, especially Proposition 13 (1978) which limits property taxes, and Proposition 4 (1979) which limits growth in appropriations to growth in personal income and population.
- Constitutionally mandated spending, notably Proposition 98 (1988) which guarantees minimum funding for education.
- Prohibitions on debt and deficits, and explicit mandates for a balanced budget.
This current global economic crisis is too big and too important to waste. Whether you believe the system can be fixed with incremental change or requires major overhaul, I urge to get involved. Your schools, hospitals, city and county governments will be better institutions as a result.
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