Confronting the role of the state’s broken governing system in the wake of the collapse of budget talks, Gov. Jerry Brown, leaders of both California political parties, and a variety of reformers plan to announce Friday that they will jointly support a wholesale rewrite of the state constitution, sources said.
The announcement reflected a shared frustration and a wholesale reversal for the governor, party leaders and leading reformers, who had been content to pursue short-term budget-balancing strategies and incremental reforms that would not resolve the state’s constant budget and governing crisis.
But the collapse of budget talks — and the total absence of any viable budget-balancing strategy under the current system- had created a quick, short, and total reassessment of those strategies, with gubernatorial staff joining labor and business leaders, party strategists, and good government advocates during secret meetings Thursday that led to Friday’s expected announcement.
People on both sides of the aisle also repudiated the bipartisan blame game that followed the collapse of talks.
"I know I said that the Democrats were the problem in the negotiations because they were doing the bidding of public employee unions," said the Republican leader in the State Senate, Bob Dutton. "But that was wrong. It’s not practical to blame Democrats for protecting Democratic interests and values."
"I’ve gotta stop f-king screaming about Grover Norquist and blaming the Koch Brothers for the fact that Republicans hate taxes," said a chastened California Democratic Party chair John Burton. "I mean, the GOP guys sign these pledges because they honestly hate taxes. They’re wrong about that, but it’s not a real strategy to curse Republicans for being Republicans. It was actually sort of childish of me, and as an elder statesman, I don’t like to behave that way."
In addition, an aide familiar with Gov. Brown’s thinking said the state’s chief executive was embarrassed by his own partisan attacks on Republicans after the collapse of talks.
"The governor recognizes the problem is that we have a constitution that creates incentives for people of both parties to behave the way they do. The parties have real differences. A two-thirds vote that requires both parties to agree to make a coherent budget – when the parties have such profound and honest differences on spending – doesn’t make much sense."
The parties agreed that a constitutional redesign should be open to interests across the spectrum. Its particulars would be the subject of either a constitutional convention or a revision commission that would represent all major constituencies.
But in general, the approach of a convention would be to unplug the state’s fiscal rules and supermajority – which frustrate the ability of the majority party to govern and be held accountable for its decisions. In return, the state’s election system would be redesigned so that Republican representation would be in line with the percentage of the votes they get.
"Even I have to admit that Republicans get hosed under our current system," said Democratic consultant Gale Kaufman. "I mean, if they had representation equal to their proportion of the vote, Republicans would have better numbers in the legislature. And if the legislature and its elections were redesigned with proportional representation, the Republicans would have a real shot at gaining control if they ran a strong campaign in every region of the state. And as a Democrat, I would welcome the honest competition."
Labor groups including the California Teachers Assn, also were on board. CTA privately acknowledged in Thursday’s talks that Prop 98, the school funding guarantee they protected, had never really protected education funding. "Since we got that thing passed, California has only declined in education spending," said CTA President David Sanchez, according to those who were present. "We didn’t protect a damn thing."
California Forward and the Think Long Committee also agreed to abandon their efforts to draft and build initiatives for the 2012 election. They recognized that would just be a part of an expensive, wasteful political war that couldn’t fix the system anyway. "Our reforms have been mostly technocratic and may have delayed our reckoning with the broken constitutional system itself," said California Forward co-leader Bob Hertzberg in a brief phone interview. "It’s time to address these problems, headlong and systematically, right now, before we do any more damage to the state’s institutions and economy."
In a joint statement released late Thursday, California Labor Federation chief Art Pulaski and Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Assn. president Jon Coupal echoed that sentiment. "Constitutional reform is a little bit scary, but it makes a hell of a lot more sense than an all-out initiative war in which one side tries to raise all sorts of taxes and attack business and the other seeks to limit spending and attack labor. Only a couple of nincompoops would take the state into that."
Gov. Brown, confronted by a reporter early Friday morning in the Capitol while walking his dog and talking to the gubernatorial portrait of Earl Warren, declined to comment on the expected announcement. But he did suggest a reporter consult a calendar before filing a story.
"You do know what day this is, don’t you?" he asked.