Voters remember "The Mikado" "I've got a little list, and none of them will be missed."
Daniel Weintraub: Voter wrath now veering toward state Legislature
By Daniel Weintraub -- Bee Columnist - (Published September 7, 2003)
The recall election freight train chugging down the tracks toward Gov. Gray Davis might not stop with him. If it succeeds, the state Legislature, which is just as responsible for California's woes as Davis, could be the next target.
A recent poll by the Public Policy Institute of California found that the people's assessment of the Legislature was even lower than their regard for the governor. While 25 percent said they approved of the job Davis is doing, just 22 percent gave high marks to the Legislature. And while 20 percent approved of the way Davis was handling the budget, an even more minuscule 15 percent could say the same for the Legislature.
The voters cannot recall the Legislature en masse, though many have expressed to me their desire to do so. But they can take out their frustrations on individual lawmakers up for reelection next year. And with a little encouragement from the people behind the recall, they could even "cut their pay and send them home" by passing a ballot measure to return to the days of a part-time Legislature.
I doubt that part-timers would be any better than the supposed professionals we have now. But they couldn't be much worse. The current Democratic majority seems to see itself as a tool of organized labor, lawyers and the Indian casinos, among others, while the Republicans often let ideology blind them to compromise that might actually improve the state's economic climate.
The good news is that the voters' rage is starting to penetrate the Capitol's thick stone walls. You wouldn't necessarily know it by the product spewing forth these days, but a handful of lawmakers have been meeting quietly in hopes of offering a set of reforms before the public does the job for them.
"I think people are frustrated," said Democrat Assemblyman Joe Canciamilla of Contra Costa County, one of the body's more thoughtful members. "I think they are angry. I think they're disgusted. Unfortunately, the way we do things in California, we just decide we are mad and strike back. We do some really dumb things. I think we run the risk of doing that again.
"There is a responsibility on our part to say from the inside, 'We agree. There are some things we need to do to try to fix the system. Here are some possibilities. Here are some options.' "
Among the ideas kicking around are moving the job of drawing of district lines to an independent commission so that lawmakers can no longer manipulate the process to eliminate political competition. This would be a huge step toward reducing the partisan polarization that plagues the place today.
Canciamilla said the group might also support a proposal for an open primary, which would allow voters, regardless of party registration, to decide on Election Day which party primary they want to vote in. Other options include internal reforms of the Legislature's rules, including limits on fund-raising during certain times of the year and changes in the way lawmakers deal with lobbyists.
Of course, this is the same group of moderates who met earlier this year to try to fashion a bipartisan budget solution. That plan received the support of exactly two members: Canciamilla and Republican Assemblyman Keith Richman of Northridge. It's not clear if this effort will fare any better.
But it might. One of the candidates for Assembly speaker, Joe Nation of Marin County, says that if elected, he would push for the kind of reforms the group is discussing. Nation also wants to further limit the number of bills Assembly members carry and the number of committees on which they serve.
"I think we have made some mistakes over the last few years," Nation told me. "We have slowly gotten into a place right now where we don't work very well. We need to have fewer committees, smaller committees. In the old days members sat on three committees. You'd develop some expertise. I know one member now who is on three committees at the same time every Tuesday morning."
That might sound like inside baseball, but it goes to the heart of the Legislature's dysfunction. Members want to spread themselves thin to increase their influence over as many issues as possible, and thus their ability to raise money. With thousands of bills in the hopper and too many members on too many committees, lawmakers are rushed to vote on matters of which they know almost nothing. The place becomes a bill machine for the interest groups with hardly any independent thought from the members.
I don't think a part-time Legislature is the right answer for what ails the Capitol. But if these and other reforms are not adopted soon, it might be the answer we get. |
