Let Citizens Guide Electoral Reform

A year ago in January, Gov. Schwarzenegger declared 2005 "The Year of Reform," kicking off a contentious special election that ended with voters rejecting all of his proposed measures.

California's representative democracy is broken, and serious electoral reforms are needed. The best solution is reforming our electoral process to improve our chances of electing leaders who understand our problems and are committed to solving them.

We suggest convening a Citizens Assembly of randomly selected citizens who care about their government and have no connection to the existing political establishment.

We believe that thoughtful, average folks, given the facts about California's political problems and examples from other electoral systems, will propose common-sense solutions for voters to approve or reject in 2008.

A Citizens Assembly may want to change the way campaigns are funded, modify or eliminate term limits, change the way legislative or congressional districts are drawn, eliminate the Board of Equalization, establish a unicameral Legislature--or perhaps none of these things. The Citizens Assembly would make the recommendations after months of study, a series of public hearings and reasonable compromises.

The Citizens Assembly would adopt a ballot measure or measures and submit them to the Legislature for review. Any legislative changes would have to be approved by the Citizens Assembly, a step designed to maintain the integrity and independence of their work. Ultimately, voters would have the final say on the proposed reforms.

Does such a process sound far-fetched? Our neighbors to the north in British Columbia used just such a process in 2004 to propose changes to their electoral system. A robust 58 percent of voters supported the measure, though 60 percent was needed for passage. The proposal is back on the ballot for 2008.

Inspired by this example, we have drafted legislation to establish a California Citizens Assembly, fund its operations and place its recommendations on the ballot for voter approval.

After this year's failed special election, it is time for a Year of Citizens Reform.