Letter from Brussels: Europe Opens the Door to California and Its Initiative Biz

Dear Californians, and especially those Californians who
play in the initiative process,

You might want to plan a working vacation to Europe soon.

I’m spending the week in Brussels, visiting European Union
institutions and talking with people here about a new, EU-wide initiative
process that will launch in April 2012.

The regulations of the process are still being drafted, both
here in Brussels and in the member states – which, like California counties,
will handle the verification of signatures. But the good news for Californians
is this: you can draft your own initiative and take it to Europe.

All you have to do is create a committee that has at least
seven European citizens from seven different EU member states. You can fund the
thing with foreign money – you’ll have to disclose it – whether that money
comes from individuals, multinational corporations, unions, or, heck, even
foreign governments. (Personally, just out of a spectator’s affection for
chutzpah, I’d love to see, say, a Chinese company owned and operated by the
People’s Liberation Army try to use this tool of democracy).

Letter from Brussels, Part 2: Non Papers and Non English

Californians are such amateurs when it comes to
bureaucratic-speak. The pros are overseas.

Visiting
the European Union, as I did this week, is disorienting for an American.
Everyone appears to be speaking English, or at least using English words for
everything. But you can’t understand what they’re saying. It’s European
bureaucratese, spoken by people using English at once as a second language and
as a defense mechanism. Actual words spoken to me in Brussels: "We are
conventioning for human rights to conversation."

I sort of
think I know what that means.

And then there’s EU’s reliance on
"non-paper."

The
non-paper isn’t a European invention. The term has long been used in diplomacy
to refer to an unofficial message. But in Brussels, non-papers are everywhere
and appear to be the default mode of communication, used for messages and
policies that go beyond anything sensitive or diplomatic.

What I Saw at the Deliberative Poll

This past weekend, more than 300 Californians – chosen at random, as part of an audience shaped to reflect the views and demographics of the state’s registered voters – gathered at a Torrance hotel for California’s first-ever Deliberative Poll.

They spent a few hours each talking in small groups – and then asking questions of experts together in one large room – about possible changes in California policy on four topics: the initiative process, legislature and representation, state-local government relations, and taxation.

I closely observed two different sub-groups during the poll. These groups may or may not be representative of the larger whole, and I don’t have poll results. The first preliminary results are due to be issued this Wednesday during a lunchtime event at the Commonwealth Club in San Francisco. But here, based on my own observation, are a few impressions:

-No ideological bias.

Can Deliberative Poll Solve California’s Girlfriend Problems?

If you look
for a path to fixing California’s governance crisis in traditional public
opinion polls, you’ll look in vain. California voters are frustrated but don’t
understand the basics of state finance and governance enough to identify a way
to reform. In this way, the California electorate is like the worst girlfriend
(or boyfriend) you’ve ever had: she is angry about just about everything, but
can’t give you any clear instruction about what you can do to make her happy.

What if
California voters learned how the governance system really worked, through some
sort of educational process? Would they be able to point to a coherent way
forward?

I Told You So, Part 2: The Failure of Prop 25

Last
October, before California voters adopted the majority vote measure Prop 25, a
brilliant, devastatingly handsome young pundit warned
in this very space
that the measure, whatever its merits, would make things
worse.

Wrote the pundit: "Prop 25 might make deficits worse and force
the state to do even more borrowing. To the extent Prop 25 were to have any
practical effect, it would threaten to deepen deficits. Consider this scenario:
the removal of the supermajority on budget bills makes it a little bit easier
for Democrats to support spending that they otherwise couldn’t get Republicans
to agree to by two-thirds vote. But Republicans still block tax increases to
pay for the additional Democratic spending."

Concluded the pundit: "The
result: more deficits, more gimmicks, more borrowing."

Last
week, with Republicans blocking taxes, Democrats passed a budget so full of
borrowing and gimmicks that Gov. Brown vetoed it.

Map Madness: One Tricycle, a Two-Year-Old, Two Blocks and Three Assembly Districts

My two-year-old son loves his tricycle. But his legs are too short to reach the pedals. So he propels himself by pushing off the ground with his feet -the same way Barney Rubble drove his prehistoric car in the Flintstones. This method of propulsion limits my son’s tricycle range to two blocks.

Which would be enough to take him through three Assembly districts — if the new redistricting commission maps are adopted.

It turns out my family lives in one of those neighborhoods – we’re apartment dwellers in Los Angeles’ Miracle Mile — that would be divided up multiple ways by the new maps.

Here’s how life at the seams of three districts would work, if the preliminary maps released last week become finalized.

The War of All vs. All Began Long Ago

Old men are warning us about a war that has already started.

Across the
spectrum, people from Gov. Jerry Brown to Mr. Fox, proprietor of this web site,
say that if there is no budget deal, we will see a "war of all against all" in
this state.

Hasn’t that
war been going on for at least a generation?

In the
1970s, court decisions on school finance, Prop 13 and the post-Prop 13 bailout
of local governments centralized decisions about tax and spending in
Sacramento. That meant everyone was competing in the same place for the same
pie.

Here’s My Map

I hope that arguing over redistricting commission maps burns calories. Because if this doesn’t help you lose weight, there’s really nothing useful about this mapping debate.

There’s an easier, smarter, more effective way to divide California into legislative districts, of course. And it happens to be my way. It wouldn’t require a redistricting commission or a legislature. It’s a two-step process:

1. Take any map of California that shows the regions of the state.
2. Make those regions our legislative districts.
You’re done.

Buster Posey and the California Mindset

I spent the last few days in the Bay Area, where it was
impossible to avoid conversation about Buster Posey. The nature of that
conversation has something to tell us about what’s wrong with California
politics and government.

For those
of you aren’t baseball fans, Posey is a young catcher and the best hitter on
the San Francisco Giants. They wouldn’t have won last year’s World Series
without him. But what people are talking about now is a ghastly injury Posey
suffered on May 25.

On the
much-discussed play in question, Posey partially blocked the plate as he
received a throw from the outfield. The base runner, Scott Cousins of the
Florida Marlins, could have tried to slide around Posey. But instead he ran him
over – a legal play in baseball. And in this case, an effective one. Posey
dropped the ball. Cousins scored the winning run. And Posey’s leg was caught in
such a way that his leg broke; he also suffered ligament injuries to his ankle.

Social Networking Changes Signature Gathering in Colorado

A group in
Colorado wants to qualify a ballot initiative to provide more money for
education, but it doesn’t have institutional support – and money – from labor
or business. What to do?

The group,
Great Education Colorado, has come up with an intriguing answer that
Californians might want to watch closely: use social networking to build one’s
own network of signature gatherers.

Great
Education Colorado is circulating, via the Internet and social networks, a kit
that offers detailed instructions on how to download, distribute, and gather
signatures on petitions. While petitions must be signed on paper in Colorado
(as in California), the network provides a way to reach people.