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Sep 27
2010
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Rebooting CaliforniaPosted by Bruce Robinson in state government , politics , policy , Organization Development , legislation , Ideas , government , election , current events , California , budget |
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What will it take to get California’s government working effectively again? Proposals for a state constitutional convention died quickly earlier this year, but some other promising ideas are now struggling to gain traction instead.
Planning for the "Rebooting California" symposium (see the full schedule here)began last spring, when many political observers expected a measure calling for a California Constitutional Convention to be on the November ballot. Now that such a gathering appears unlikely in the foreseeable future, symnposium speaker suggested an alternative, reports KRCB-TV Senior Political Analyst Dick Spotswood. Cal State Fullerton professor Raphael Sonensheir, Executive Director of the Los Angeles Charter Reform Commision, put forward that body as a possible role model for the state.
There are several initiatives on the November 2nd ballot that address issues of governance, including two, Props 20 & 27, that focus on redistricting. Additionally Prop. 25 would lower the threshold for passing the state budget from two-thirds to 50%, while Prop 26 would extend the 2/rds requirment for approving new taxes to cover fees as well. When Jon Coupal, President of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association, expressed cautious support for the two ideas in tandem, Spotswood admits, it got him thinking.
Dick Spotswood blogs for the Marin Independent-Journal as The Militant Centrist.
California has long since met its goal of recycling at least half of the state’s waste stream. So north coast Assemblyman Wes Chesbro thinks we should reset the goal to be even higher.
Achieving further reductions in overall waste generation will require working closely with manufacturers to adjust processes and materials so that their products are more readily recyclable.
There’s widespread agreement that California’s state government is dysfunctional and “broken.” Our constitution was adopted when the the Golden State small, homogenous and barely industrialized. What will it take to bring the mechanics of the California'’s governance into the 21st century? 
Nothing has changed the California state constitution as much as the statewide initiative process, which Lustig explains was an early reform measure that, over time, came to be emlpoyed in ways that countermand the reformers' intentions.
Proposition 14, passed by California voters last June, was presented as a reform that would reign in partisan extremism through a sort of Open Primary. Lustig, however, is not conviced that either the state issue or the adopted change is an accurate assessment of the state's current crisis of governance.
California Faculty Association president Lillian Taiz, a history professor at Cal State Los Angeles, charges that the newly revealed CABO minutes make it clear that the CSU administration’s opposition to Senator Yee’s sunshine bill, SB 330, was driven not by principle, but protective self-interest.
