Nonpartison sorrow

Partisan politics plays an important role in California and legislators seem locked within their parties, but when Governor Schwarzenegger gave his last state of the state address, you didn't have to be partisan to feel sad. Timothy Egan in the N.Y. Times expressed best perhaps the general sense of sorrow for lost opportunities that now pervades the state. The high hopes of six years ago when Californians thought a new hand at the helm could steer the state through its problems have faded. The governor and the legislature are locked into an endless battle of meeting ever-growing needs with ever-shrinking resources. It's not the government that has failed us, however, but we the citizens who have failed at directing ourselves. Californians struggled for the right to change the state through citizen initiatives and the idea was a good one. What has happened over the years, though, is that we have voted in opposing initiatives, demanding services but making it impossible to raise taxes to pay for them while making no provision for facing a recession like the one we are currently facing. Many concerned citizens believe the initiative process is broken. Our constitution surely needs an overhaul. It's time for citizens to take responsibility. The fault, dear Brutus, is not in the stars...and not even in the politicians, but in ourselves.

Only temporary?

Castro Street and much of the city was alive with protest last night after the California Supreme Court decision to uphold Prop 8 was announced. The proposition, passed by a small majority of voters, rescinded the right of same-sex marriage in the state, while at the same time upholding the validity of thousands of same-sex marriages performed before November 2008. Today this decision is making headlines all over the country and has been the subject of an editorial in the N.Y. Times. Despite the high emotion shown by both supporters and opponents of Prop 8, the underlying question of making changes to the state constitution is perhaps the most important issue to emerge from the case. The California constitution has been amended more than 500 times, making changes both trivial and major to the document. What kind of a constitution needs constant tinkering over the years? Surely one of the most important lessons learned from this case is that it's time to hold a constitutional convention and take a long, rational look at howthe state wants to govern itself. The opponents of Prop 8 are surely right that the set-back yesterday is only temporary, but the weakness in our constitutional procedures will be enduring unless we do something about them, and do it soon.

Is California leading the nation to chaos?

From the tranquil green campus of Princeton University, Paul Krugman today writes about the dire state of California. Even though Californians have been making bitter jokes about how the state has lost its way, it is chilling to know that on the other side of the continent a leading economist thinks that if California really still is "where the future happens first" then "God help America". Krugman is worried because the political system in our state simply is not functioning. He points to Prop 13 as the ballot measure that started the trend toward unworkable budgets and an unstable government. Our dependence on income tax to fund almost all government functions leaves us vulnerable to every swing in the economy. And what are we doing about it? So far not much. Everyone knows we need changes in Prop 13 to enable us to make property taxes more equitable. We need to stop allowing a minority of lawmakers to hold our budget process hostage to the need for a two/thirds majority. As citizens we need to take responsibility for supporting change. It's time for every one of us to support the call for a Constitutional Convention and to hold our lawmakers accountable for their decisions. The longer we wait the worse the world will be for our children and grandchildren.