California Voices

With a budget deficit, high unemployment, and foreclosures, California will spend the New Year tackling the symptoms of a larger problem. While these areas need attention, my colleague Mark Paul pointed out in yesterday’s Bee that, "California's real trouble is that its current system of government, misshapen by decades of piecemeal changes, is no longer capable of dealing with its problems."

The May 19th special election, explained Mark, exposed the major problems with California's governance system:

Here was California governance in all its glory: three political systems and two contradictory governing principles - majority rule and rule by consensus - in collision. Voters created a legislative majority, which was forced to bend to the minority, leading to a supermajority compromise, which was then overridden by a majority of voters, leaving the budget in disarray.

And here was the lesson: California doesn't work because it can't work.

So what do we need to do, you ask? We need to fix the cause of California's dysfunction: its failed system of governance.