Cross-posted at CityJournal.

California’s water wars aren’t about scarcity. Even with 37 million people and the nation’s most irrigation-intensive agriculture, the state usually has enough water for both people and crops, thanks to the brilliant hydrological engineering of past generations of Californians. But now there is a new element in the century-old water calculus: a demand that the state’s inland waters flow as pristinely as they supposedly did before the age of dams, reservoirs, and canals. Only that way can California’s rivers, descending from their mountain origins, reach the Sacramento–San Joaquin River Delta year-round. Only that way, environmentalists say, can a three-inch delta fish be saved and salmon runs from the Pacific to the interior restored.

Such green dreams are not new to California politics. But their consequences, in this case, have been particularly dire: rich farmland idled, workers laid off, and massive tax revenues forfeited. Worse still, they coincide with a $25 billion annual state deficit, an overtaxed and fleeing elite populace, unsustainable pension obligations for public employees, a growing population of illegal aliens—and a world food shortage. This insolvent state is in far too much trouble to predicate its agricultural future on fish.

The maneuver in the Senate Appropriations Committee
yesterday to undercut the referendum on the Amazon tax legislation is a glaring
example of the contempt with which legislators hold the people’s right of initiative
and referendum. The process is an integral part of the checks and balances
system giving the people control over their government. Clearly, some
legislators don’t want the voters making decisions at the ballot box on actions
taken by the legislature.

Amazon.com challenged a new law that requires online
retailers to collect sales tax. A referendum was filed to put the issue before
the voters. According to the Los
Angeles Times, signature gatherers "already are off the streets, having met
their goal well before the Sept. 27 deadline for turning in completed
petitions."

To foil this process, Senator Loni Hancock pulled what
amounts to a parliamentary parlor trick by gutting a bill and substituting
language similar to the wording in the original tax law calling the revised
bill an "urgency" measure. The constitution declares that an urgency measure,
which requires a two-thirds vote to pass, is immune to a referendum effort.

"Not Invented Here" is recognized as a pretty dumb way to
run a tech company. It doesn’t work so well in politics, either.

In the biz world, it refers to a company’s unwillingness to
make use of technology or innovations that someone else thought of first,
figuring it can’t be that good if we didn’t develop it our self (see also:
Let’s Reinvent the Wheel).

In politics, a similar attitude is standard operating
procedure when it comes to budgets, legislation, proposals and just about
anything else that comes down the pipe. Not only can’t it be that great an idea
if someone from the other party thought it up, but no way, no how are we going
to let the other guy snatch any political credit for it.

A case in point can be seen in D.C. right now, where
Republicans seem to be willing to fight tooth and nail for a tax increase
President Obama wants to block.

Amazon may not have intended it, but
there’s historical justice in the online retailer’s use of the California
referendum.

The
history of the referendum is tied up in the history of delivering items of
value – originally documents – from place to place.

That
history dates to 15^th century Switzerland. Municipalities,
particularly in the canton Graubünden, were
trying to escape from the oversight of feudal overloads. Some bought their own
freedom, introduced their own courts – and joined together into leagues for
mutual defense and local self-determination.

LA Superior Court has announced more severe staffing and budget cuts coming this year and next. SF Superior Court has already forecast that civil cases will slow down to pre-‘Fast-Track’ (just what it sounds like) glacial swiftness, and that litigants will not enjoy waiting 5 years to get to trial here in the 21stC, just like we didn’t enjoy it back in the ‘80’s. The quality of justice is being strained by economic realities to the breaking point.

It’s high time (over-time, some would say, and I would agree) to simplify this California legal system – Already! – Before we slip into David Copperfield’s Bleak House-land, or resemble a legal system like in India, where civil cases drag on, literally, through generations of lawyers; let’s just STOP . . . . .. and think, for a minute.

I will enter my 35th year practicing law as a litigator in the courts of the LA Superior Court in a few months – I started back when you could park at the Music Center for $2; there were not nearly as many high-rise office buildings downtown – perhaps the air was more foul then than it is now. I have watched the legal system slowly become overloaded, underfunded, and now largely abandoned by most popular judges after they reach retirement age, for the Golden Fields of private judging, or, by it’s more dignified name, Alternative Dispute Resolution.

The combination of
a newly drawn congressional district in a heavily Democratic area along with
California’s experimental top-two primary probably means Republican voters will
determine whether Congressman Howard Berman or Congressman Brad Sherman will
represent the newly drawn 30^th Congressional District.

Fourteen year
Congressional veteran Sherman will likely face off with Berman, who has been in
Congress twice as long, unless either one decides to seek a different seat,
which appears unlikely.

The two
heavyweights have plenty of connections to the San Fernando Valley where the
new seat is drawn.  They each have big
name supporters in their corner. Sherman recently touted the endorsement of
former President Bill Clinton while Berman received fundraising support from
the DreamWorks trio of Steven Spielberg, Jeffrey Katzenberg and David Geffen.

It is now up to members of the
California Assembly to decide whether two of California Forward’s important fiscal
reforms will move forward.

Yesterday, the Assembly
Budget Committee approved SB 14
(performance-based budgeting) and SB 15 (multi-year
fiscal forecasting), which will bring a new budgeting system to California that
increases stability, focuses on program results and looks to the future.

The White House announced a host of initiatives designed to
save American businesses $10 billion over five years. The target for
the savings? Overly burdensome federal government regulations, which
cost small business owners as much as $10,500 per employee. The news
is welcome for job creators struggling to survive in the Obama
Economy, and shows that months of House Republican efforts to shine a
light on these job killers are yielding gains for American families
and businesses.

UPDATE: AB 1247 unanimously passed the Assembly and heads to the Governor’s Desk for signature 

Just like local governments throughout California, it is clear that state government must enact meaningful pension reform, and it must happen soon. In many ways, the current system is unsustainable. It’s costing taxpayers billions of dollars, and it threatens stable, secure retirement for workers over the long term. The required employer contribution rate for the State Miscellaneous Tier 1 plans has gone from 0% in 2000-2001 to 19.92% in 2010-2011.

While the debate continues over how best to reform our state pension system, I have proposed a first step to reform the existing system by providing greater transparency and pave the way for broader reforms moving forward.

Regardless of our positions on pension reform, we should all agree on the need for greater transparency. Opening up the books is a valuable first step that will enable lawmakers and policy makers to better understand how the pension system is performing, and how it might impact the contributions of governments and their employees in the future.