California Dreamin'

I came across some musings by Walter Russell Mead the other day and sent them straight over to The Quiet Man via email to get his thoughts... he's weighed in and I thought I'd throw in my two cents as well.

Mead's column focused on the recent ruling by the Supreme Court which mandated that California free up to 46,000 prisoners because the overcrowded insane conditions had become some dire they had, in the court's view become an 8th Amendment violation. Justice Anthony Kennedy, writing for the majority, did something rare for the Supremes in that he attached a couple of photos to his decision, illustrating just how insanely bad prison conditions are in the Golden State. Justice Scalia read a scathing dissent from the bench- the gist of which I won't bother summarizing now- needless to say, he's against it.

Mead takes this one step further: his basic premise is that if you can't afford to keep your criminals locked up then you have essentially become a failed state. He spends a lot of time looking quite thoughtfully at some of the factors that have lead California to where it is today, wallows in some tiresome boomer nostalgia and then proposes breaking California up into five separate states. To his credit, he also targets Florida, Illinois, New York and Texas as candidates for potential break-up as well, but I've got to agree with The Quiet Man on this one... Mead makes some good points, but misses the mark.

To me, the biggest problem with California is structural- it's system of direct democracy has essentially neutered it's legislature and made the people the 4th branch of the government. And while it's hard to argue against direct democracy you just have to look at the flood of ballot initiatives that happen every election year in California to see the downsides of it. Everything from Prop 8 to Prop 19, to propositions that would have made it illegal for illegal immigrants to get driver's licenses and propositions governing the size and scope of chicken coops- all the way back to the infamous Proposition 13 in the 70s- I agree that direct democracy and letting the people have a voice- especially in a country like ours, which tends to ignore the people in favor of the rich and the corporations is a fundamentally good thing. But let's face it: California stands as the perfect example of having way too much of a good thing.

So first off, I'd put serious limits on these ballot initiatives. Originally a dollop of direct democracy was introduced during the Gilded Age at the end of the 19th Century to counter-balance the corruption and influence of the railroad barons in Sacramento- and by and large until Prop 13 and the 70s, ballot initiatives in California were nowhere near as ubiquitous as they are now. Prop 13 changed all that- and California Conservatives/Republicans are just as guilty as the state's Progressive/Liberal/Democrats in steering the state towards the proverbial iceberg. This is a group, ideological failure- and once the process was politicized, what was intended to be a tool for the people to check the power of special interests in Sacramento- WHEN NECESSARY- became something else entirely. Cali needs to get back to using direct democracy sparingly...

The other thing- which I'm not sure the Governator managed to get done or not- is putting redistricting in the hands of an independent commission. Iowa does it that way and our redistricting process has been fairly painless for about 2-3 decades now. (I think the State Supreme Court had to draw the lines way back in the late 70s and I think they went to a second and even third plan in the late 80s) Ah-nold wanted a similar model for Cali and that could potentially reduce the gerrymandered majorities in the legislature which I would imagine would leave folks up north and in the Central Valley feeling a little unrepresented in Sacramento.

Third, and I know this will make me seem like a loony tea partier- but shrink the bloated State Government and do it radically! California has more than 500 state agencies... I know it's a big state, but that seems insane to me. And I'm not saying you privatize everything, but you've got a responsibility to ask and take a hard look at what these agencies are doing. If taxpayers aren't getting enough bang for their buck so to speak, then off with it's head! (I'm not against government services or government- but I do expect government to at least try to be cost-effective, especially if it's my and everyone else's tax dollars at work... which I think is reasonable.)

There are any number of structural reforms that California could implement before splitting itself up- which, as The Quiet Man points out, probably is advocated more for it's dilution of California's electoral heft more than anything else. (Though if you think about it: when was California last a serious swing state in electoral politics? And would splitting off the north and Central Valley really dilute it all that much? The population centers would always be on the coast and I can't see Sarah Palin taking Los Angeles by storm any time soon.)