On the docket: "Proposition 13," the referendum by which the people of California, in 1978, voted to amend the constitution of the state to limit taxes. The text of the referendum caps the property tax to 1% of property value. To raise taxes, there needs to be a super-majority vote of two thirds in the legislature. "California is the only state where it takes a two-thirds majority vote to pass a budget and raise taxes, comments Steven Hill of the New America Foundation, a democratic research institute. "This gives the minority, in this case the republicans, a veto over everything."  The Senate pro Temp, Darrell Steinberg, drew a similar indictment in the Sacramento Bee newspaper. "It is totally unreasonable for the largest state in the country and the eighth largest economy in the world, to give a political party that voters have placed in the minority the ability to dictate not only the date on which the budget gets passed, but also its content. When you think about it, it's actually an extraordinary concept "... At the White House, Barack Obama may also be reflecting on a similar situation where he is required to have a "supermajority" of 60 votes in the Senate in order to push through the platform of reforms upon which he was elected....

The political analyst Steven Hill has offices near by Ocean Beach, a neighborhood of small houses submerged by fog coming in from the Pacific. He has developed for Repair California, a method for selecting delegates to the Constitutional Convention that would escape the influence, and money of lobbyists. The "citizen delegates" will be selected based on a representative sampling of the population and not elected. The group would subsequently comprise of 50% women. And would comprise more than 50% black, Asian and/or Latino. Delegates would be paid salaries similar to those elected to the legislature and would have a year worth of orientation to educate themselves. In so doing, they would be somewhat better qualified to fully participate.  "We can not expect to replicate what the founding fathers did," he said. "But the debates show they had no idea where they were going." The "citizen delegates" would have full latitude to invent. Among the ideas: remove a room, make the legislature a part time one, limit the validity of a referendum to ten years. Only one taboo: taxes. One would no be able to increase them. ... Original Article