California Forward

Former California Assembly Speaker Bob Hertzberg, chair of the new reform organization California Forward, deals a blow to the idea of state constitutional convention in today's Sacramento Bee. He says a convention couldn't produce change until 2012, and the state can't afford to wait that long. Instead, California Forward wants to give the opportunity for the legislature to act on various reform measures. If they don't, the measures will go on the ballot next year.

Unintentionally, Barack Obama may have delivered a blow to political reform in California. Various news reports say former Congressman and Clinton chief of staff Leon Panetta is Obama's pick for CIA director. In California, Panetta has been a leading voice for budget and political reform, most recently as the leader of the reform coalition California Forward. 2009 has been shaping up as a year for reform, as various groups try to capitalize on the state's budget crisis and political stalemates to push big ideas (including the possibility of a constitutional convention). For those folks, losing Panetta is not good news. He can't be easily replaced. 

Sacramento Bee columnist Dan Walters draws a picture Sunday of the reform landscape in California. He puts Leon Panetta's California Forward as the incrementalist side of the reform movement and the Bay Area Council (which wants a constitutional convention) and the New America Foundation (your blogger's employer, which has been talking about changing the make-up of the legislature) as the big-thinking, "aggressive" side. More on this subject later--after I go out and aggressively hunt big game for dinner.

Politicker has the following account of a panel sponsored by California Forward, the new reform group led by former Congressman and Clinton Chief of Staff Leon Panetta. Speakers, including the state senate's incoming top Democrat, Darrell Steinberg, predicted that voters next year will be asked to reverse the two-thirds requirement to pass a budget. Unions also may sponsor an initiative to raise taxes. Such a move would make some sense because raising taxes requires two-thirds in the legislature but a simple majority of voters when a tax hike is offered by ballot initiative.

Capitol Weekly has a good piece on the Schwarzenegger redistricting initiative as a test of a new non-profit reform group, California Forward, led by former Congressman and Clinton Chief of Staff Leon Panetta. Panetta is one of the best strategic thinkers in the state, but fighting dysfunction in the Clinton White House is nothing compared to fighting dysfunction in California state government.