A group of California organizations has formed an organization, “Repair California”, to promote the idea that California needs a new state constitution and that the best way to get a new constitution is to support an initiative that will give the voters the authority to call a Constitutional Convention.
Although California is well-known for its extensive use of the initiative, it is ironic that the California initiative cannot be used to initiate constitutional revision, neither directly, nor even to get the process started. In California, the only way to call a constitutional convention, or to revise the existing convention, is with a two-thirds vote of each house of the legislature.
See www.repaircalifornia.org, for information about the movement. Repair California is mid-way through a series of meetings around the state. Such meetings have already been held in Fresno, Los Angeles, Santa Monica, Sunnyvale, and San Francisco. Future meetings in August and September are set in Truckee, Irvine, and Oakland. The meetings are free and open to the public. One of the regular speakers at these meetings is Steve Hill, known in San Francisco as a leader in the fight to use Instant Runoff Voting. One of the key points of discussion in the public meetings is a discussion of how the delegates to any constitutional convention would be chosen. The group has been putting a great deal of thought into a process by which some sort of lottery would enable any willing citizen to be eligible to be chosen. See this article about the San Francisco meeting, held August 11.
NO need for any Con-Con by the party hack special interest gangs.
Equal ballot access, P.R. and nonpartisan A.V. is ALL that is needed — via some initiative petitions.
Too much for the armies of New Age political-historical media MORONS to understand.
Are the same people in charge of California going to be the ones to try to repair it??
No. The audience was asked to indicate by a show of hands whether the group should let the Governor and maybe legislative leaders appoint any members of the proposed Constitutional Revision Committee at all, maybe even just 3 out of 400. The majority in the audience voted, “NO”, no appointments at all by the governor or state legislative leaders, not even a token amount. However, a large majority thought it was OK to have a special role for mayors, city councilmembers and county supervisors.
Local party hacks = provincial party hack *thinking* = loot the State regime to support local regimes — all in the name of *reform* of course ??? Duh.
Do delegates by a random jury pool ty[e selection from each district.
The Repair California campaign is very seriously considering Gary’s (#5) proposal — five members from each of 80 state Assembly districts. In Canada (and among some academics in the U.S.) this is called a Citizens Assembly, and has been done successfully in British Columbia and Ontario. Another precedent is the citizens group that were formed in Louisiana after Katrina to plan the reconstruction of New Orleans.
If Repair California follows through on this, one difference will be that the constitutional convention would consider several subjects (all related) rather than one rather narrowly defined subject.