Constitutional Amendments

Can 'Average' Californians Manage a Constitutional Convention?

Steven Hill — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 01:25:00 -0400

As you ride the bus or freeway to work tomorrow, ask yourself: Can the person seated next to you, or driving past you, be trusted with the job of redesigning California's basic political and budgetary rules? Are "average Californians" ready to don the white powdered wigs to become the Founding Mothers and Fathers of a new California?

With efforts to call a constitutional convention picking up steam, a proposal for "citizen delegates" has generated considerable interest. Rather than holding elections or having state officials appoint the delegates, about 400 delegates would be randomly selected to produce a scientifically representative sample of all Californians. No political insiders or partisan apparatchiks need apply, just Golden Staters motivated by a sincere desire to help their state.

That's the theory, but could it actually work? Even if the citizen delegates were high-minded and lacking in partisan and personal agendas, are average people capable of the kind of in-depth understanding of complex issues necessary for redesigning California's basic institutions?

In short, I believe the answer is yes. Read my oped in the Sacramento Bee to find out more by clicking here.

More Than 500 Amendments

Joe Mathews — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 00:06:00 -0400

The San Francisco Chronicle thinks the California state constitution is too easy to amend. It's been amended more than 500 times. The paper doesn't say it outright, but it might make sense to make it more difficult to qualify a constitutional amendment for the ballot, while making it easier to qualify an initiative statute. The constitutional change requires more signatures -- a number equal to 8 percent of the number of votes cast in the most recent gubernatorial election -- than the initiative -- 5 percent.

I've been wrestling with what the best formula would be. I think that if certain kinds of initiatives are to be more difficult, thus limiting the people's ability to legislate or amend the constitution directly, then it ought to be much easier for the people to overrule the legislature via referendum. How about rolling back that current requirement for signatures -- now 5 percent of the gubernatorial votes -- to something like 1 percent?

Sensible Initiative Reform in Colorado

Joe Mathews — Wed, 07 May 2008 19:40:00 -0400

As their session came to a close Tuesday, Colorado state lawmakers passed a sensible reform to the initiative process. They raised the standards to qualify an initiative that would change the state constitution, but lowered the standard to qualify an initiative that changes a mere statute. There had been no separate standard before, and that meant that the Colorado constitution had a lot of new amendments. Why bother with changing the law when, for the same money and effort, you can change the state constitution?

This legislation is important because it recognizes the value of lowering signature standards. In most cases, reform consists of raising signature standards -- which merely adds cost and limits the process to rich individuals and interest groups.