Now even the politicians are calling for a state convention to totally re-write a state constitution for California ,so maybe it will work better. Now 'better' for the politicians is not the same as 'better' for democracy or the citizens of California.
We just took away the corrupt ability of the State Legislature to GERRYMANDER/draw it own election district lines , because it was resulting in permanent legislators of the less than best variety, like Tom Lantos. Bet you the state legislature wants that power back, not for good, but for more dark backroom corruption for corporate and special interests.
We now have initiative ,recall and referendum and i bet the state legislature wants to take them away. Yes, we have made mistakes being swayed by marketing money to make some bad initiative measures, like Proposition 13 never should have applied to commercial property but just to residential property, and the supreme protection of the mountain lion has resulted in injury attacks and human deaths because the animal rights nuts equated the wild lion with home cats, and the marriage religion ballots when marriage is a legal contract and what religion you are or are not should not be controlled by the state,,,and there may be a few others. But in the absence of honest responsible open state government, we the public needed to step in and in effect run the state. For 20 years the budget has been late ,,,and there is NO EXCUSE.
The state legislators probably want to take away recall because we recalled the only governor in history , and a lot of other corrupt dishonest and incompetent elected officials, specifically Governor Gray Davis who told us that we should DEREGULATE HOME HEATING GAS AND ELECTRICITY STATE PRICE CONTROLS AND THAT IF WE DID THAT THE MARKET WOULD MAKE THE PRICE OF NATURAL GAS AND ELECTRICITY GO DOWN. It went up and some friends saw their home energy bill quadruple in the first month,,,and then it bankrupted the state of california, with ENRON, just watch the movie dvd.
Unless we get the governor and state legislature to have total political sunshine and zero lobbyist money replaced with state funding of all elections, we will only be opening the door for more corruption, more back room dealings, more elected officials who do not represent their districts nor state interests, just payola special interests.
We have an admired movie star again as Governor and even he can not hire a competent state administrator and political advisor wise enough to win over the slimy corrupt state legislature. Therefore we have one of the worst bond ratings for a state and pay much higher interest to borrow money, which should not be, especially for a Republican Governor when Republicans are always spouting off on how fiscally responsible they are compared to the Democrats. Not one of our Republican Governors in the last 50 years has left us with a big budget surplus, no state debt, and a huge emergency fund,,,not one.
So here we are, going from the 1960s as the 7th largest and richest economy in the world,,,to the laughing stock of the USA, too poor to pay for teachers, or police claiming fat pensions and disability like retiring firemen, and unable to maintain our roads and state infrastructure. The press or media is not honest enough,,,or interested enough until the blood flows down the street,,,to honestly discuss how this happened, what are our options, and what is the best course for the collapsing state of california. Just more 'business as usual'.
