As the Big 5 careen toward yet another bad budget deal that will leave California even worse off than before, it's worth recognizing that despite the individual failures of politicians like Arnold Schwarzenegger - and let's face it, his failure is massive - California's crisis is a crisis of a broken governmental system.

For the last 30 years we have lived under a right-wing constitution. Prop 13 imposed a conservative system of government on California, where the state's tax revenues were set to an artificially low level and both the legislature and the people were denied the right to change this through a majoritarian process. As Congressman Sam Farr (CA-17) put it:

We can go to war on a simple majority vote. We can take away life and property with a simple majority vote. If it’s worked for 200 years for a nation, why does it have to be different for California?

The reason it is different is because conservatives are not a majority in the legislature or the population of California, haven't been for a VERY long time (if ever), and aren't going to be anytime in the foreseeable future. So they set up a system that is built to ensure they and their ideological desires are given priority. And it's working out pretty well for them.

Which means that for the rest of us, it's time to get to work changing that system. We've been kicking around the Constitutional Convention for a little while now on Calitics, but we need to bring this out to a wider audience. And that's what's going to happen in Southern California this weekend, with two town hall events on the Constitutional Convention.

The first is in Santa Monica on Friday night from 6-9pm at Santa Monica College. The second, co-sponsored by the Courage Campaign (where I work as Public Policy Director) along with the Bay Area Council and the William C. Velasquez Institute, is at USC on Saturday from 9am to 3:30pm. Rick Jacobs, chair of the Courage Campaign, will be moderating the morning session on the problems with California's government. Panelists will include Assemblymember Kevin DeLeon, LA City Councilmember Eric Garcetti, Common Cause's Kathay Feng, and Dr. Jose Calderon of Pitzer College.

For those of you Northern Californians who don't want to spend your weekend in LA, I will be speaking on a panel "Business vs. the California State Constitution" at the CDP E-Board meeting in Burlingame at 8am on Saturday morning. Joining me will be Senator Loni Hancock, Roger Noll of Stanford University, and Sunne Wright McPeak of California Forward.

160 years ago a group of newly arrived Anglos and Spanish-speaking Californios met at Colton Hall here in Monterey (pictured at right in a flickr photo by fritzliess) and held California's first Constitutional Convention. The document they produced was literally copied from the Iowa state constitution but had some elements of the Mexican system of government and justice grafted onto it, and included full protection of Spanish speakers' rights in what was officially a bilingual state.

California's constitution has undergone significant change since then. In 1878 the Workingmen's Party rode an anti-Chinese backlash and the Long Depression to power, and rewrote the Constitution in an effort to undermine the power of wealthy interests. (Unfortunately they also ended the 1849 bilingual policy.) In 1911 the Constitution was essentially rewritten when Progressive Republican Hiram Johnson pushed through the initiative, referendum and recall. And in 1978 another dramatic set of Constitutional revisions was initiated by Prop 13.

Americans think of their constitutions as static and unchanging, but this has never been the case. Both the US and the California constitution have undergone frequent revision. Sometimes this comes in the form of actual amendments, but it can also take the form of significant changes in Constitutional interpretation. The only amendments that came out of the New Deal were the 20th and 21st (moving Inauguration Day to January 20 and ending Prohibition) but as most historians and political scientists agree, FDR nevertheless initiated major changes to the way the American government operated.

California's constitution has been amended frequently - over 500 times by some accounts - and included an effort in the late 1960s to modernize the document. Still, it has become clear that California's government is broken and unable to meet the needs of one of the worst crises our state has ever faced. The economic crisis, drought, an energy and environmental crisis that seem to have faded a bit from the public mind but are still very much here - all of these problems are dumped into the lap of a government hamstrung by a conservative veto and a series of rules, many of which date from the last 30 years, designed specifically to prevent government from meeting the people's needs.

The spectacle of Abel Maldonado blackmailing the Legislature to accede to his demands as the price of passing a budget last week showed the need to eliminate the 2/3 rule. It is the first change, the tree that blocks the tracks, the door that opens that path to all other changes. But it has become clear that California needs even deeper reform to solve the present crisis and meet the needs of a 21st century state. Periods of major economic change usually are accompanied by constitutional change - hell, even the US Constitution itself owes its existence to the severe economic crisis of the 1780s, one of the worst in American history.

That's why the Courage Campaign, where I work as Public Policy Director, is joining the Bay Area Council and a diverse coalition of organizations to sponsor a Constitutional Convention Summit on Tuesday in Sacramento (you can register at Repair California).

It's my own personal belief, and one shared by the Courage Campaign, that a Constitutional Convention can successfully fix California's broken government. In a poll of our members last September over 90% said they supported a convention. And in December we launched CPR for California - a Citizens Plan to Reform California that included some major structural fixes for the state, including fixing the budget process and producing long-overdue initiative reform as well as empowerment solutions such as public financing of elections and universal voter registration.

But the key to success is that a convention must truly be "of the people." A convention will fail - and may not even be approved by voters - if it is seen as a top-down effort. Remember of course that a Constitution is a social compact, the product of a sovereign people, a recognition that we must have government to survive but that it must also be accountable to the people. For a Constitutional Convention to have legitimacy it must include the people of California at every step of the journey - especially in setting the Convention's priorities. Additionally, the delegates who attend the Convention must be representative of the state's population, and not be selected from a small group.

It's also worth noting some of the limits of a Constitutional Convention. The Courage Campaign believes that all social issues should be off-limits at a convention, such as marriage equality (that is best dealt with by the California Supreme Court, or by the voters if the Court upholds Prop 8). The Convention alone won't solve our state's financial woes.

But it's time that California's government once again adapted to the times. We need a constitution and a government responsive to the people and able to address the broad 21st century crisis, instead of a government that was deliberately broken and subject to a conservative veto. A Constitutional Convention won't solve all our problems, but it's a necessary step forward for California.

It doesn't come without risks, of course. But the time has come for progressives to assert a new set of ideas and a new agenda for California's future.

Over the flip I explain the process of calling, holding, and approving the proposals produced out of a Constitutional Convention.   Read More »

Three months late, California has found itself a budget. It satisfies no-one, fails to address the long-term systemic flaws in the budgeting system, doesn't provide the services that people expect to receive when they pay their taxes or cast a vote, and essentially accomplishes little more than keeping (most of) the lights on for a few months until this comes around again.

The problems will be the same, the partisan divisions and rancor will be the same, and we'll be another year down the road towards a completely ungovernable state. We simply can't keep doing this every year; it fails everyone, and we deserve better.

So Rick Jacobs and Courage Campaign floated an idea, but it's ultimately up to you: Should we call a Constitutional Convention?

It's clear that the system isn't working, and bold action is needed to break out of this perpetual stalemate. Rick Jacobs laid out the full case in an email Thursday, but it's up to you to vote and tell us what you think:   Read More »