Right now, California is reeling like much of Africa was after WWI and WWII. There is a terrible power-vacuum and it sucks. Arnold needs to dump an eerily obfuscated special election buried in May to achieve any of his goals and the Dems in the legislature are begging at the feet of three Elephants. We need either a totally re-structured government, think Annapolis Convention to Philly style approach, or a gubernatorial candidate who will do for the state what Obama has been doing for the country.
Now I know a reconstruction of the entire governmental system in CA is implausible, but we need something similar. But can someone answer me this question: How can we amend the state constitution to strip citizens of natural rights using a majority vote from the "mob," as Jefferson would have called it, but at the same time require the state legislature to achieve a TWO-THIRDS majority to pass a budget? If anyone thinks that makes sense, please, be my guest and start explaining. For everyone else in the world, fee free to join me in my rant against the legally required dysfunction that CA perpetually resigns itself to. It makes. no. sense. Now, I'm drifting, because I would need an intensive CA history class taught through a joint effort by God, Treebeard, and the ghost of John Locke, fused into one magnificent teaching mechanism in order for me to articulate half the problems facing CA right now. The main two solutions, however, appear obvious to this 18-year-old voter: Repeal the requirement of a 2/3 majority for a budget, and/or elect a transformative candidate that has the personal power to instigate some substantive change is this most dysfunctional of states.
The first should be easy, for if the Yes on H8 campaign could win, so could a campaign to "amend" the state constitution to allow a majority to allow the state to be managed. These people, who consistently tie up the budget because they have some deep, psychological aversion to paying a half cent more on a sales tax, ruin the state. Could a business run without money? Could a pitcher throw a pitch without an arm? Could a breathing organism breath without a brain to tell it to? The answer to all three is no. The people of CA need to repeal the stipulation that CA will never form a working budget. If they do not, CA will perpetually be stuck with a terrible, if existing, budget. How hard would it be? If I weren't about to go to college in DC I would do it myself. Get something on the ballot that will allow CA some ability to function. And then, here's the crazy part: call it what it is. Don't hide it like this special election hides the result of a lottery alteration in a confusing sample ballot that takes two lawyers and an hour car-ride to understand. Half the people in the state won't take the time to even vote, and half of those who do vote will enter the ballot box without ever having read the propositions. And half of those who vote and read the ballot box, probably still won't know confidently what exactly each propostion will or will not do. And it pretty much has to be this way because, essentially, the state legislature is forbidden by law from coming up with a working budget on time.
The second transformation CA badly needs will be a little harder, but hey, even Fred the Great from 1760's Prussia would be better than nothing, don't ya think? Even a quasi-monarch would be better than a legislature that can't decide on anything. You would think the CA budget deal is worked out each year at a re-enactment of the Council of Trent considering the rate at which they decide on their budget. Hold on, the Trentian comparisons go further, once the Council of Trent ended, nothing was definitively decided! Hey, does that sound similar to the result of CA finding a budget? I think it does...CA passes a budget, and then turns to a special election, with propositions the average voter wouldn't even try to decode, to decide some key particulars. CA needs to work better than the reeling 16th century Catholic church. (Is that another comparison to a reeling entity? You'd think CA was a fishing line! wow my jokes are terrible) But seriously, CA needs a governor who will go to Sactown and be able to get something done. Not to knock on Ahnold, (but also not to compliment him) but when the exectuive of a state has to bypass his own party in the lesgislature to appeal to the "mob," somehting is wrong. Seriously wrong. Modern governments are republics for a reason. We need a Dem Governor, and one with personal power to suplement the power of the office. I don't know who that person is, and he/she doesn't appear to be in the running for 2010, but who knows. I'm hoping someone pops up.
So here's to hopelesslyy hoping that something good happens in CA government in the next couple of years. Because our budget is looking disturbingly similar to 's budget just before the French Revolution, and no one wants that again. Let's just try to find the domestic version of Napoleon before we have to rename our democratic republic Le Guillotine to coax him to us. Don't you just love dramatic hyperbole?