Panetta Raises Prospect Of Constitutional Convention

A tight travel schedule and a misbehaving laptop make this report two days late. But in a speech Thursday night in San Francisco, former Congressman Leon Panetta, a wise man of California politics and leader of the new reform group California Forward, gave something of an endorsement to the idea of  a state constitutional convention.

Panetta was the keynote speaker at a dinner put on by the Bay Area Council, the business-backed policy group that has been pushing the idea of such a convention. JIm Wunderman of the council, in his remarks, made a full-throated case (though he was drowned out by clinking glasses and dinner conversation) that such a convention is needed and called California Forward "a strong, strong partner." He also pooh poohed concerns that interest groups would dominate a convention or that the process would be open to mischief.

I've interviewed Panetta several times and heard him speak on a number of occasions. Usually, he's easy listening--funny and avuncular. But he was passionate and compelling Tuesday night. He sounded so sad and despairing about the state of the country and of California that he seemed to approach tears. He talked about the California he was raised in as being "a state of the future." But now, the state is threatened by a political culture "more concerned with winning than governing." Decisions are made by crisis, not consensus. He cited any number of problems -- from budgeting to the way districts are drawn -- but got his biggest applause of the night for a line accusing lawmakers of using the initiative process to escape responsibility. But neither he nor California Forward has offered an agenda for reforming the initiative (More later on the ideas advanced at this week's New America conference on the subject).

Panetta rarely gets personal, but he was tough and accusatory. He said he couldn't understand why Gov. Schwarzenegger couldn't force legislative leaders into a room and not make them leave until they compromised. He was bitter in criticizing the recent budget adopted by state leaders--he called it dishonest. He got off a funny line during a description of how legislative districts used to be drawn: "I remember Phil Burton in a room with what looked like ice water."

He concluded by outlining reforms he believed the state needed. He suggested that if lawmakers continued to block such changes, the state should go around them, through the initiative process, through a citizens' assembly, or through a state constitutional convention. "We ought to take them to the people, we ought to talk about a constitutional convention, we ought to talk about a citizens assembly." Panetta is famous for giving behind-the-scenes advice to politicians of both parties; usually that advice is to compromise and make peace. But Panetta is not in a peacemaking mood these days. "I urge you to fight," he said Tuesday night.