Governor

Arizona's new governor, Jan Brewer, who took over when Janet Napolitano joined President Obama's cabinet as homeland security secretary, is seeking to limit initiative power in the state. Among other changes, she wants to undo a constitutional amendment that makes it next to impossible for the legislature to change a law enacted by ballot initiative.

As the Arizona Republic explains in this thorough history, Brewer is re-opening an argument that is as old as the state. 

Gov. Schwarzenegger, appearing Sunday on ABC's This Week, indicated he was inclined to protect the marriages of gay couples who legally tied the knot this year. These marriages could be at risk because of the passage of Prop 8. Schwarzenegger offers the caveat that such an order must be legal, and that he must first confer with Attorney General Jerry Brown, who has said he will defend Prop 8 while also protecting the existing marriages. Here's the exchange with interviewer George Stephanopolous.

STEPHANOPOULOS: In the meantime, some legal experts have suggested that you should, if you believe that, issue an edict, a ruling, that says that the marriages that have already taken place in California are absolutely legal. Will you do that?

SCHWARZENEGGER: Well, I have to get together with Jerry Brown, our attorney general, and see what the legal opinion is, because he's my lawyer, basically. And so, we always do those things together.

STEPHANOPOULOS: But you're inclined to do it?

SCHWARZENEGGER: It's a conversation that I can have with him about the -- if that's the legal way to go.

Good politicians have the ability to appear to be on both sides of an issue, but Jerry Brown -- the former governor and presidential candidate, and the current attorney general of California -- is breaking new ground in this realm. Try to follow this: Brown, a likely candidate for governor in 2010, is supportive of same-sex marriage politically. But before the state supreme court, he's defending Prop 8, the just-approved initiative to ban same-sex marriage in California. At the same time, he's defending the marriages of approximately 18,000 gay couples who took the plunge in the past five months, while such unions were legal.

The Sacramento Bee's Shane Goldmacher surveyed all the potential candidates for California governor in 2010 on their positions on the 12 statewide ballot measures. The full list is here, and the story is here. The frontrunners on both sides -- Jerry Brown and Dianne Feinstein for the Dems, Steve Poizner and Meg Whitman for the Reps -- ducked the survey.

I visited yesterday afternoon with Jim Wunderman and othe rstaff and consultants of the Bay Area Council, the San Francisco-based organization that is pushing a state constitutional convention. I'll write at more length later, but the two main things I learned is 1. The process is still early, and even Wunderman, the strongest advocate for this idea, doesn't have a clear idea of how such a convention would be called and how it might work. 2. The convention idea has real momentum. Wunderman has been deluged with expressions of interest from across the political spectrum. And if he and his lawyers (Hanson Bridgett is providing legal advice) can figur eout the mechanics of this quickly and file a measure, he wantsan initiative to call a constitutional convention to appear on next year's special election ballot.

As evidence of that interest, Schwarzenegger gave a shout-out to the convention idea, without specifically endorsing it, in his budget press conference yesterday. Here's the paragraph in question, from the official transcript released by the governor's office:

California's elites are talking, and here's what they're saying: this governor can't get things done, the legislature is hopeless, the entire state government is dysfunctional. (OK, just because they're elites, they're not wrong. These are Western Elites, not the dreaded Eastern Elites who are being so, so, so unfair to Sarah Palin). The you know what has hit the fan. The only way to fix this is top-to-bottom reform.

So let's have a constitutional convention.

What does your blogger think? Put the convention in some place nice (Monterey, maybe, or how about Coronado?) and I'm there, live blogging every second. But while I hate to burst bubbles (OK, I enjoy the occasional bubble burst), I wonder if a constitutional convention is a realistic goal, and whether such a gathering might be more trouble than it's worth.

Take for example the two-thirds supermajority required for the legislature to pass a budget or raise taxes. That would be an obvious target of a major constitutional reform. And it would face fierce opposition from Republicans, who as the minority need the two-thirds requirement to remain relevant. Voters, who see Prop 13's supermajority requirement for taxes as sacred, also would object. But, under Article XVIII of the state constitution, the calling of a constitutional convention must begin with --  a vote of two-thirds of the legislature. Oh, bitter irony!

Here's my LA Times piece arguing that Gov. Schwarzenegger should respond to the prison guards' recall effort -- by embracing the recall vote and using it to rebuild his political capital.

NOTICE OF INTENTION TO CIRCULATE RECALL PETITION

TO THE HONORABLE ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER: Pursuant to the California
Constitution and Section 11020, California Elections Code, the undersigned registered qualified voters of the State of California hereby give notice that we are the proponents of a recall petition ( and that we intend to seek your recall and removal from the office of Governor of the State of California and to demand election of a successor in that office.

The grounds for the recall are as follows:

Catastrophic leadership failings and inept management, including, but not limited to, repeated acts of untrustworthiness, gross fiscal mismanagement jeopardizing funding for schools, infrastructure, public safety and other essential services; reckless borrowing, saddling taxpayers and future generations of Californians with billions of dollars in new debt; breaking your promise to "cut up the credit cards" and oppose new taxes; failure to reform California's correctional system, causing a federal takeover of prison health care and costing taxpayers an estimated $8 billion; using state workers as "scapegoats" for your leadership failure and threatening their rights and financial wellbeing; soliciting and accepting special interest money at levels never before seen in California history'; betraying voter trust and mortgaging our children's future; and leaving California in far worse shape than before your election.