Dysfunctional California / Maybe it is time to stop scapegoating legislators:
"Maybe it's time to call your state legislator to admit 'It's not you, it's me.'
A recent Field Poll, designed by a panel of political scientists from Stanford, Berkeley and yours truly from California State University Sacramento, asked Californians a series of questions about proposed reforms to state government and various constitutional convention scenarios."
The findings reveal a virtually impossible-to-please electorate.
On one hand, majorities in the poll think "fundamental changes" need to be made to the state Constitution. Citizens much prefer a package of revisions done all at once, and they want what is in many ways a radical solution - a new constitutional convention. Indeed, the Bay Area Council and a coalition called California Forward are both actively pursuing a convention, possibly on the 2010 ballot.
This is, of course, a familiar pattern in California politics. If we feel unease, we grasp at the big, bold changes that just might be crazy enough to work. Think of the dramatic tax overhaul that was Proposition 13, or our strict legislative term limits, or the recall of a governor, whoM, naturally, we replaced with an action movie hero.
When we're unhappy, we go big. Yet these changes never seem to fix the problems, and in many cases, they create new ones.
Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/11/01/IN0F1AB8TM.DTL#ixzz0Vd1mySPY
"Maybe it's time to call your state legislator to admit 'It's not you, it's me.'
A recent Field Poll, designed by a panel of political scientists from Stanford, Berkeley and yours truly from California State University Sacramento, asked Californians a series of questions about proposed reforms to state government and various constitutional convention scenarios."
The findings reveal a virtually impossible-to-please electorate.
On one hand, majorities in the poll think "fundamental changes" need to be made to the state Constitution. Citizens much prefer a package of revisions done all at once, and they want what is in many ways a radical solution - a new constitutional convention. Indeed, the Bay Area Council and a coalition called California Forward are both actively pursuing a convention, possibly on the 2010 ballot.
This is, of course, a familiar pattern in California politics. If we feel unease, we grasp at the big, bold changes that just might be crazy enough to work. Think of the dramatic tax overhaul that was Proposition 13, or our strict legislative term limits, or the recall of a governor, whoM, naturally, we replaced with an action movie hero.
When we're unhappy, we go big. Yet these changes never seem to fix the problems, and in many cases, they create new ones.
Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/11/01/IN0F1AB8TM.DTL#ixzz0Vd1mySPY
