California's Teachable Moment

The Bay Area Council couldn't have picked a better time to convene the February 24 California Constitutional Convention Summit. With so many Californians disgusted by the behavior they have just witnessed at the State Capitol, this is truly, as we parents have learned to call it, the teachable moment.

California had no good budget choices. When states, because of economic slumps, face deficits and must balance their budgets, their actions inevitably put a drag on spending and jobs, deepening the recession.

But the final California budget, and the process that produced it––secretive, dominated by special interests, unnecessarily prolonged––once again showed Californians how badly broken the governance and budget systems are.

The lack of sound budgeting and accounting practices tossed California into the recession with finances already deeply askew and its budget already out of balance.

California's undemocratic supermajority requirement for spending and tax bills deepened the state's cash crisis, increased the pain of the final budget choices, and sowed further public distrust of state government. The two-thirds rule permitted special interests to extort a large tax cut that adds to the state's unsolved long-term budget deficit. It gave a handful of polluters the leverage to roll back environmental rules, totally unrelated to the budget, that have been enacted to reduce preventable death and disease from dirty diesel engines.

The great majority of Californians already believe the state is headed in the wrong direction. This budget certainly clinches the case for fundamental constitutional reform.