The year has arrived when we’ll learn if the voters of California want to re-write their state constitution. Initiative measures currently gathering signatures, if qualified for the ballot and passed by voters in November, will create a state constitutional convention.
Arguments for and against calling a convention should fill up many a website and opinion page between the beginning of this new year and Election Day. The chatter has already begun. John Grubb, campaign director for the group pushing the convention, Repair California-Californians for a Limited Constitutional Convention, presented his arguments in the San Francisco Chronicle yesterday.
A week earlier, I had my say in the Chronicle. I republish my commentary below. Simply stated, I don’t believe you can have a limited constitutional convention, especially when it comes to the question of taxation. Despite the pitch by convention proponents that Proposition 13 is off limits if there is a constitutional convention, I believe the famous property tax reform measure will be debated and convention delegates could offer changes.
If the convention delegates offer changes to Prop 13, I believe that would likely scuttle the entire constitution re-write when it comes time for voter approval. However, I also believe, despite many obstacles, there is a scenario in which the voters just may approve calling a constitutional convention. I discuss all that in my Chronicle op-ed reprinted below.
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Frustration with a dysfunctional California government has spurred a movement to have the people, by initiative, call a state constitutional convention to rewrite the state’s basic laws.
But not all the laws.
Advocates of the constitutional convention initiative hope to reduce opposition to the measure by declaring Proposition 13 off-limits from convention delegates’ deliberations.
Prop. 13 should not be taken off the table if and when a constitutional convention is called.
How can it be, when the groundbreaking property tax reform measure is the central piece of the whole state and local governmental budget discussion? How many times has Prop. 13 been assigned blame by critics of California’s fiscal system, or praised as a savior for taxpayers?
More than two centuries ago, delegates to a convention called for the purpose of fixing the Articles of Confederation ended up creating the U.S. Constitution. Convention delegates cut their own path, despite the directions laid out for them.
More to the point, as the California Progressives argued a century ago, taxation is the essence of government and the control of taxation is the control of government. Delegates to a constitutional convention will be laying the framework for the workings and control of California’s government. Taxation cannot be ignored.
That said, those who want to use a constitutional convention to alter or dismantle Prop. 13 do so at their own risk. Prop. 13 did something revolutionary: For the first time, it gave certainty in taxation to the taxpayer instead of the tax collector.
Taxpayers know what their property taxes will be when they purchase property and know how much the taxes will go up every year. They also know that attempts to raise other local taxes require a vote of the people. Voters will not surrender Prop. 13’s certainty so readily.
It is understandable that the proponents of a constitutional convention want to put Prop. 13 aside. As Californians have witnessed for years in duels over ballot initiatives, one line in an initiative, exploited by the opposition, can sink an entire proposal. Imagine the possibilities of undermining a newly proposed state Constitution by campaigning against any number of controversial proposals in it, including changes to Prop. 13, which polling indicates voters overwhelming support.
Despite obstacles facing approval of a constitutional convention, such as knowing that divisive issues could be considered, the complex method for choosing delegates and uncertainty of positive results, there is a scenario in which the people may support the constitutional convention initiative at the polls in 2010.
If the ballot is chock-full of measures that affect the economic interests of some of California’s big players – raising the business property tax, cutting public unions’ political dues, adding oil and cigarette taxes, introducing pension reform, dropping or modifying term limits, or creating a part-time Legislature – even cultural and social issues that might divert campaign contributions interests on both sides of the issues will be pouring resources into winning those fights.
There will be little money for funding the opposition or support for a constitutional convention initiative.
If voters become frustrated with playing legislators again over a ballot full of initiative measures, then they just may search out the constitutional convention measure to send a message and vote “yes.”
Then everything is on the table.