I know many of you disagreed with what I wrote in the “California’s Dreaming” post, but I think the larger point — that California voters created the mess that is the California government themselves, and they have to be the ones to straighten it out — still stands. And it’s clear that the first priority has got to be rescinding Proposition 13.
Steven Taylor at Poliblog has a good analysis of How Proposition 13 Screwed Up California. Californians may have felt their property taxes were out of control before, but the solutions they created through Porposition 13 have had a number of unintended — although not unpredictable — consequences that have created worse problems.
And you must read “The Ungovernable State” in The Economist. No other state has taken “direct democracy” through initiative and referendum as far as California has. Other states that allow I & R have limits on the system, including allowing legislators to modify or even override referenda the voters have passed. But not California. Through “direct democracy,” California has tied itself into knots. It may need to completely overhaul its constitution before anything can get done.
At the Washington Post, New Gingrich celebrates California’s recent election results as a “repudiation of the California establishment” and “a harbinger of things to come.”
This vote is the second great signal that the American people are getting fed up with corrupt politicians, arrogant bureaucrats, greedy interests and incompetent, destructive government.
But the “greedy interests” mostly do their work though manipulation of the I&R system, and California’s main problem is not that government is “too big,” but that it is too hamstrung. “The states with huge government machines have basically moved beyond the control of the people,” Gingrich writes. But one can argue the government of California is controlled — well, jerked around by — voters more than that of any other state. That’s the problem.
Gingrich is, as usual, a font of not-even-half-baked ideas that add up to less than nothing. As Harold Meyerson says today, Gingrich’s “biggest idea was to close down the federal government to force Bill Clinton to slash Medicare payments.”
But getting back to California — the state has to change its way of governing itself. There’s no getting around that. Will Californians do this?
I don’t agree that the California government is to blame.
They’re the one’s that abdicated their responsibility and gave too much
power to the public in the first place.
If the government had a back bone and had the guts to
make decisions on the tough issues, this ridiculous proposition system
would have never have become what it has become.
I agree with you that it may be time to start afresh. California residents
have an instinctual mistrust of their government now. It surely is one of
the worst run states in the country. If it wasn’t for the weather,
it wouldn’t have anything.
Finally, someone who has recognized the true problem… Starting with the initiative process, through Prop 13, through term limits (which prevents legislatures from getting real experience in doing their jobs…would you want a surgeon operating on you who had to find a new profession after 8 years????), through governors who don’t know how to govern or who confuse acting with doing…through the power that 1/3 of one house of the legislature has to stop all spending and all budget bills…all this must change. And, a constitutional convention starting anew is the only overall solution. Can we do it? I doubt it….
Yesterday’s LA Times ran an editorial supporting a state constitutional convention. I don’t know what it would take to make this happen, and there are a lot of minefields along the way, which the editorial points out, but things are so broken here – which will become even more evident to all, as the state makes the draconian cuts everyone but hardcore conservatives fear – that I expect a groundswell for this idea in the months to come.
Some groups, as the article points out, are trying to use this as a platform to push some very progressive ideas, such as proportional representation. And so if done right, this convention could be a real win for progressives not only in California, but nationally. Coinciding with this is the 2010 gubernatorial race – we have a strong bench of Democratic contenders who could potentially champion some very positive reforms.
Elsewhere in the Times, was a front page editorial by Michael Hiltzik, who did a great job enumerating and explaining the state’s structural problems:
1) the 2/3 supermajority requirement
2) term limits – we have legislature of rookies, a leadership vacuum
3) prop 13, which capped property taxes, and which made local governmental functions, such as running the schools, get in line behind state functions, such as repairing the highways and everything else the state does. I’m hopeful there is a growing awareness of how bad Prop 13 really was – there is a reason why California schools have fallen so far.
What I fear about this the most is that conservatives will have succeeded in breaking the public’s confidence in government, which could become a self-reinforcing downward cycle. And that they will have erected so many obstacles both real and psychological against coming together and effectively righting the state. I’m hopeful there are still enough sensible Republicans in the state who recognize their need for the basic things good government can provide. Fixing California will require what sensible Republicans remain to marginalize the loony fringe.
People say California is like the USA, only more so. We have a particular kind of sunbelt conservativism that fostered Nixon and Reagan, before they hit the national stage and inflicted their particularly poisonous ideas on the entire country/planet. California has always been a leader of sorts, for good and ill. And so there should be a particular focus on how this situation is worked out, because it will likely have repercussions for the rest of the country.
I’d be interested in knowing the percentage of California home owners who are still living in the home they were living in in 1978. I doubt very many given that we tend to be a moving bunch. Given that a change in ownership means a change in assessment, a one-million dollar price tag (not outrageous around here) would mean a $10,000 property tax bill/year.
My point is that the majority of us are paying quite a bit in property taxes so the excuse that ‘low’ property taxes are responsible for all the short-falls in state revenues is a crock. Am I missing something?
Dave XNet: You really need to read the Economist article I linked above, which includes a brief history of how California adopted the I&R process in 1911. Things didn’t go haywire until the 1970s, about the time the Reagan Revolution was getting underway. These two events are not unrelated, I don’t think.
You can rant at the politicians in Sacramento all you like, but the system they’ve inherited doesn’t give them much room to solve problems.
I hate to sound defensive, so take this with a grain of salt, but:
I know many of you disagreed with what I wrote in the “California’s Dreaming†post, but I think the larger point — that California voters created the mess that is the California government themselves, and they have to be the ones to straighten it out — still stands.
I’m not sure that was what an honest reading of your post would take away as the “larger point.” That was more like a sub-point introduced around paragraph 9 or so.
I think you got such a reaction from those of us living in CA bec. we have been thinking hard and long about how to vote in this election, and made a difficult, well-deliberated decision to vote the measures down. And your post — coming from someone 3,000 miles away and admittedly uninformed on the matter — came across as judgmental and belittling. As in: lots of sarcasm, assuming we’re expecting a bailout, calling us “irresponsible”, and basically painting with a broad brush I haven’t seen from this column before.
It’s very easy to say “California voters are to blame because they didn’t get rid of Prop 13 and the referendum system”, but a lot of us who voted against these propositions actually do try to make a difference — and some of us just can’t give any more time and money to political causes than we already do.
I guess it’s just the first time I’ve been disappointed in one of your posts, and you didn’t offer much in the way of a correction.
Sigh… sorry to be a snit. Carry on …
Barbara, California’s initiative system is the best in the nation. Even if it sometimes produces bad results, we have a system of direct democracy in this state without which we’d never have medical marijuana, for instance. Nothing that Prop. 13 has done is irreparable in the sense that we have the same right to repeal it as we did to enact it.
Will Californians do this?
Not this year.
By next year at this time, with unemployment doubled and white formerly-middle-class families suddenly discovering that they need services that the state government is no longer able to provide, I think we’ll start to see even the Republicans begin to understand what they’ve wrought.
felicity writes :
I’d be interested in knowing the percentage of California home owners who are still living in the home they were living in in 1978.
With the way housing prices have risen in California’s urban areas during the ensuing thirty years, even ten years of ownership has been enough to confer a substantial tax advantage, and fifteen or twenty is a huge difference.
joel hanes – tell me about it. In 1976 we bought income property, 2 rentals on one beach lot, in Manhattan Beach and found ourselves with a property tax bill which exceeded our rents, which were the going rents at the time.
I’ve always said in reference to the Saint Andreas fault that it was California’s punishment for giving the country Nixon and Reagan.
Maha,
I’ll agree this much the system is a mess. The fact it worked until the late 70’s
and now no longer does – for what ever reasons, societal changes,
special interest groups etc, seems to be a given. But it’s not the peoples
fault these changes occurred. The system put in place was not robust enough to deal with the changes. Everybody recognizes the thing is ill, but are powerless to do anything. I read the Economist article but it hasn’t really changed my impression.
You leave it to the people to vote on things they don’t really understand.
Poorly worded (perhaps intentionally) initiatives. It’s doomed to failure,but it’s not the people fault.
Silly fuckers out there think they’s in charge cause they got Propositions. Propositions ain’t the peoples’ will, it’s what fuckin interest group’s got the most fuckin money to invest into swayin public opinion. The fuckin Mormon Church swung the last one, and a walk through that troubled State will show you that the fuckin developers have got the money to get fuckin anything they want. “Fuckin Governor want to tax my luxury car? Kick his ass out. Nobody fucks with my car.” That wasn’t government by the people, it was goddam brilliant marketing. California sold it’s soul to the developers with Prop 13 and one look at the orange fungus coverin the Southland with it’s pollution, water shortage, crime, traffic, noise, and corrupt police is proof. All California’s got left is the weather. The weather is nice.
The attitude of demanding governmental services while demanding lower taxes is widespread. There is a huge sense of middle class entitlement which insists that as good citizens they should be rewarded and that someone else must pay. Middle class anger over losses in real estate and retirement funds have added to this sense. Since class warfare in this country has focused down – we should expect the spending corrections to be made on the backs of the weakest amongst us.
When did newt, the disgraced ex speaker of the house have an opinion worthy of so much coverage? Why all the sudden media interest in what he thinks?Why do they assume that the viewer cares.Perhaps they need to be reminded of this mans past because they must have forgotten, or think we are all so stupid and have such short attention spans that we have. I am sure charlie manson has a view on our current political situation too(probably more coherent than what newt offers too, pretty scary huh?) but no one is asking him.Because we don’t care!.. so why newt?.He is like a turd in the GOP punch bowl right now, floating around with cheney and rush, someone should tell them that it aint pretty….what has become of that party when the RNC stands for rush, newt and cheney??
So, newt, we know it is a tough economy,, but pal, GET A JOB!..Contribute something productive to society..throw some fries in a basket! No one cares what you think your a nobody like the rest of us now, get used to it.You had your 5 minutes and you spent it pointing the fingers you were not using to have an affair to impeach Clinton for getting a monica.You spent it serving your wife divorce papers while she recovered from cancer surgery…You can’t help california with your views..Go help governor perry decide how he can remove his state from the union..perhaps your views are welcome there.While you are there perhaps you can spend ALL of that free time you have(while the rest off the nation struggles and works their asses off all day while you blow hot air) to plan a hunting trip with cheney..invite rush too!
LOL….california has problems? lets call newt and see what he thinks….ROFLMAO…Media???Really???? Hell why not ask Miley cyrus?Perhaps we can channel Billy the Kid for his comments? Was sarah palin too busy to take their calls? I can’t wait for thanksgiving when the media will consult newt on the best way to stuff and cook a turkey..next time I am in the restroom and run out of tissue I need only ask myself “what would newt do”? I bet the media has already asked the question, knowing that we the viewers, really care.
California: I don’t know the solution for your troubles, but if I were you I wouldn’t take any advice from an un- employed disgraced blow hard who can’t even manage his own personal life in a morally acceptable way.
Dave Xnet: California built it’s Constitution at the heght of the Progressive Movement, and was the closest to any state of adopting the princibles of initiative, referendum and recall completely.
It was a bad idea. Not the basics, but the implementation. One of the problems (and I think we saw some of it today) was the referenda on Supreme Court justices. This wasn’t much of an issue until the 1984 campaign against Rose Bird and… crap I forget his name; she lost, he survived.
It was, however, a shot across the bow of the court. Make the “wrong” call on an issue which is hot button, and you may be ousted. The split the baby decision on Prop 8 is classic “neutral ground” decision making. It has logical inconsistencies.
But, while it offends both parties, it’s not bad eough for either to make voting the judges out (which comes up every 18 years; the theory is they have time for passions to abate).
The attempt to clear the bench (there were four slated, and two in real jeopardy, as I recall) was meant to give Dukemejian the chance to pack the court, and so make the state a more conservative place.
Do we need to rework it? Yes. We need to fix the financing (and level out school funding), make intiatives harder to put on the ballot, restructure the districting (which has gotten better) and generally reign in too much direct democracy.
There are too many people taking advantage of how few people turn out to vote (the election in June of last year had something like 9 percent turnout), to get all sorts of stupid shit passed.
The budget mess makes it possible for one group to not compromise, and still blame the people they hold hostage for the mess.
I could go on. For all I think the thrust of the argument (that we needed to vote for 1A-1D because the situation was screwed) was flawed; because the solution was worse than the problem, I don’t disagree we need a complete overhaul.
I am just terrified of who will take control of the convention. The Governor has a lot of say in who gets appointed. There are so many possibly bad outcomes I can’t even try to predict a “worst case”, because I can think of a host of them.
My suspicion is we get one offered to us, and the present structural problems cause it to be refused. So we get the status quo, and the sense that fixing it is impossible.
Felicity: I have friends who are living in houses they bought 20 years ago. My first stepfather, if he’d not moved back to Ohio, would still be in the place they bought in 1978. When he moved, in 1993, he’d seen a substantial increase in the value.
Since the place had a detached second house in it, he was seeing several sorts of advantages from the property not being reappraised. The increase in value was how he managed to buy a new place in Ravenna, and a business.
That was after surviving his job going away, and several years of reduced (drastically) income. Part of why he moved back to Ohio was a long stretch of unemployment in LA. Had he been looking at higher taxes, he’d have made that move a lot sooner.
So, 30 years? Probably not more than 10-15 percent. On the other hand, when a parent dies, that house hands down with no reappraisal. That’s a huge advantage.