from the Sacramento Bee, www.sacbee.com/opinion/story/1717487.html

A constitutional convention has been proposed by some California business leaders as a vehicle to fix the Golden State's deeply entrenched political and economic woes. While a convention offers the hope of a new beginning, it also inspires understandable fear that hard won rights may get trampled in the horse-trading. The state's leadership in recent years has hardly inspired confidence. Why should we imagine that it could match the brilliance of James Madison, George Washington and the other Founders, and chart a new course for our state?  

The first thing to recognize is that the Founders were not as brilliant as the mythmakers would have us believe. Their initial design of government -- the Articles of Confederation -- was a timid attempt at national governance, more dysfunctional than California's government today. To their credit, once they realized their design had faltered, they were bold enough not merely to tinker around the edges. They had the courage to fix their eyes on a new horizon, completely redesigning their existing governmental structures to create Version 2.0, which became an inspiration to the world.

Here is some brand new analysis from Washington state results that might shed light on the efficacy of the top two primary, which many are promoting as a good thing for CA. It is especially directed at whether the top two would elect more moderates -- or more extremists? This evidence below suggests it's a bit of a crapshoot, the top two primary could as easily elect more extremists as elect more moderates. 

In taking a look at official WA state election results at http://vote.wa.gov/Elections/WEI/Results.aspx? for last year's primary, you can see there are basically four categories of results for the 98 house races and 25 senate races.

In the first category, which has by far the vast majority of races, one candidate (usually an incumbent) is either uncontested or is so far in the lead with anywhere from 53 percent to over 70 percent of the vote and a huge enough lead that it's obvious they will win in the general (November) election as well. That includes 24 races uncontested in the primary, and 3 with only token write-in opposition. The practical impact in those races is no different from what we have now in CA, as I outlined recently in my Los Angeles Times oped.

Welcome to the Political Reform blog of the New America Foundation. On this blog we hope to foster substantive discussion of political reform in California and nationwide. In California, this is a particularly good time for such discussion since the Bay Area Council, a group of forward-looking business people in the Bay area, have proposed a Constitutional Convention in California. They, along with the New America Foundation, League of Women Voters, Common Cause, Willie C. Velasquez Institute and others have cosponsored a summit on February 24 in Sacramento to discuss the possibility of a constitutional convention for California. Find out more about that summit here.

Please feel free to voice your opinions and heartfelt wishes about political reform, constitutional convention and other issues on this blog (and do it respectfully, of course).

Thanks, and welcome aboard the Political Reform Train!

Steven Hill
Director, Political Reform Program, New America Foundation