Repair California: the movement for a new state constitution
Wednesday, August 12th, 2009
Last night, I had the honor of attending a San Francisco organizing meeting for Repair California, the movement to call for a constitutional convention. It was marvelous to attend an on-topic town hall-type session where nobody demanded to see anyone’s birth certificate.
The utter brokenness of our state government is as obvious a 7.0 earthquake right now. Our state education system ranks near the bottom in student achievement and performance, even when controlling for poverty and demographic factors. Our university system, once the world’s best, is being hollowed out by budget cuts. Our water system is built for a state with half its population, and catastrophe awaits. Our transportation systems have been neglected for 30 years, leaving LA and the Bay Area with America’s #1 and #2 most congested freeways.
And nothing can be done about any of it, because since 1870 our Constitution has been amended 500+ times. Its 75,000 words contain layer upon layer of special interest protection, rendering our elected leaders essentially powerless to change anything. Not that they want to change anything — mercilessly gerrymandered districts and the two-thirds “yes” requirement to pass a budget has led to electoral non-competitiveness, ideological extremism, and utter gridlock.
The problem isn’t the bums in office. The problem is systemic. And the system needs to get blown up. Ergo, a new constitution.
And so it is that concerned Californians from across the ideological spectrum have come together to get the constitutional convention ball rolling. It will require getting two initiatives on the ballot, and working out a lot of details about choosing delegates and limiting the the new document’s scope. (I used my microphone time to suggest that delegates should be chosen randomly by assembly district, and then they would caucus to elect delegates to the state constitutional convention, similar to the way a jury selects a foreperson. One of the movement’s leaders, Jim Wunderman of the Bay Area Council, said this proposal is already under consideration.)
Everyone who lives in California should get on board right now. A new constitution is going to happen — almost everyone accepts that it has to. And it will be up to citizens to make sure that California’s new constitution is of, by, and for the people, and not hijacked by the special interests that dominate the initiative process every election.
