Sunroom Desk

California Common Cause director Kathy Feng, and other panelists at a Pasadena League of Women Voters meeting yesterday, described some of the complex 2010 ballot initiatives currently in the planning stages.

Among the heavyweight proposals, with corresponding heavyweight sponsors:

amending the California constitution by initiative

convening a constitutional convention

changing the way the Secretary of State is elected and runs elections

reducing the majority for budget approvals from 2/3s to 51%

adjusting term limits

allowing a “split roll” to put commercial properties outside Prop 13 protection

Common Cause has not endorsed any of the initiatives. Feng said their scope, directed at political processes in the state, also relates to recently passed Prop 11’s redistricting commission. Applications for that citizen commission will be accepted starting December 15.

Feng’s comments followed background presentations from league members. The first was statistical, and according to my notes, California gets the constitutional Olympic bronze, with a constitution 8 times longer than that of the U.S.; only Alabama’s and India’s are longer!

The second presentation was on Repair California and California Forward, the two major sponsoring organizations of state government reform initiatives, and covered their founders, budget, and policy direction.

League member and attorney Ann Ansman, the final local panelist, insisted that “we have a good constitution” with many protections, and efforts to change it shouldn’t go beyond fixing the infrastructure of governmental processes (tackling legislative gridlock, for example).

Be prepared for an inundation of initiatives to reform California’s constitution, budget process, elections, and governance.