[ccebook.cn]The World in 2010

United States
Found(er)ing Fathers
Nov 13th 2009
Californians will discover that voting for a new constitution is easier than drafting one
The constitution stymies even the
Terminator
Getty Images
In November 2010 Californians will vote in a pair of ballot measures to call a constitutional convention. If polls
are right, their approval of these measures is all but assured. Californians are fed up with the dysfunctional
governance that periodically turns their state into a laughing stock. They want a new constitution.
Their disdain for the existing one is well deserved. It is among the most convoluted such texts in the world,
ranking with Alabama’s and India’s as one of the longest. It contrasts starkly with the minimalist elegance of
America’s constitution, adopted in 1787, or Alaska’s, ratified in 1956.
California’s first constitutional convention took place in 1849, before California was even admitted to the
Union. A second convention in 1879 tried to right every possible wrong and produced a tome. To this was
added, during the Progressive era of the early 20th century, direct democracy—with referendums, recalls and
voter initiatives. Such initiatives have since produced more than 500 constitutional amendments. America’s
constitution, a century older, has been amended 27 times.
Among the quirks in California’s current document are: 1) a requirement, from 1933, for two-thirds majorities
in both houses of the legislature to pass a budget; and 2) the same two-thirds requirement, added by voters
in the infamous Proposition 13 of 1978, to increase any tax. Two other states (Rhode Island and Arkansas)
have this requirement for budgets and several others have it for raising taxes, but only California has it for
both.
If California’s legislature contained moderates, normal fiscal management might still be imaginable. But the
moderates have left. Californian elections, as Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has frequently complained, are
won or lost in the party primaries of gerrymandered districts that encourage extremism. Democrats may be in
the majority, but nay-saying Republicans can block any budget and habitually do.
The element of direct democracy exacerbates the situation by ensuring that the inmates—ie, the voters—run
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