Gridlock over the state budget, water policy and other pressing problems has led many to suggest California is ungovernable and our problems unsolvable. Out of this has come a lively discussion over revising the state’s Constitution. But among the two dozen biggest problems facing California, revising the state Constitution doesn’t crack the list. In fact, the debate over a constitutional convention is a dangerous distraction and time waster, shifting the focus of state leaders and opinion makers from higher priority problems that are actually solvable.
A Constitutional Convention is a process about process. As envisioned by its sponsors, from concept to execution, the course would take a minimum of three years, and at the end of that road would not have resulted in any budget being balanced, any program made more efficient, any tax increased nor any election term changed. Nobody’s life in California would have been improved, except perhaps the campaign consultants hired to push for or against the various proposals.
At best, any serious discussion of structural or fiscal reforms would have been delayed for three years. At worst, the convention would become sideshow with special interests flogging their pet changes, politicans scheming for advantage, and participants either befuddled by the crush of issues or joining in the general demogoguery and grandstanding.
Choose any issue: I challenge anyone to demonstrate how a constitutional convention can better solve these problems than either a legislative bill or a focused ballot measure, also known as an “initiative.”
· A Constitutional Convention won’t balance the state’s budget, nor will it devise a better way to drive consensus among elected leaders who have deep ideological differences. A Constitutional Convention won’t eliminate ideological differences.
· If the goal of a Constitutional Convention is to eliminate the two-thirds legislative vote requirement to increase taxes, that can be the subject of a separate ballot measure next year – although that proposal was considered and defeated just five years ago.
· If the goal of a Constitutional Convention is to enact a spending cap or other controls on government, that too can be the subject of a separate ballot measure – although that proposal was defeated this year and in 2005.
· A Constitutional Convention won’t improve performance in our schools. Revising the Constitution won’t improve teacher and principal quality, reduce bureaucracy or rationalize how money is spent in the classroom.
· A Constitutional Convention won’t create a single job, lure an additional business, or create a dollar of new investment in California.
As provided in the state’s Constitution, delegates to a constitutional convention “shall be voters elected from districts as nearly equal in population as may be practicable.” That is, much like legislative districts. Can anyone imagine an election process using, say, the 40 Senate districts as a template, where the major financial and organizational support for delegates would not be dominated by public employee labor unions?
Advocates for the Constitutional Convention claim that delegates can also be selected “by an application process, or through a random ‘jury pool’ process,” even though the Constitution currently uses the term “elected” (see above). But anticipating this difficulty, sponsors are circulating a potential ballot initiative that would create an elaborate “jury pool” process that would select 400 delegates (five from each Assembly district) at random from among registered voters. While approach is preferable to having the convention in a union hall, it seems to run counter to the prevailing elite wisdom that what ails California is “citizen-power gone mad.”
California is governable and California’s problems are solvable. The punditry that says otherwise merely rationalizes incompetence and excuses failure. But success means attacking the state’s problems on their own merits – whether it is cutting spending, raising taxes, empowering local governments, paying teachers more and/or changing tenure laws, etc. – not by kicking off a new process to create more intervening processes.