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.

On August 11, the Riverbank, California city government said it would not try to remove Jesse James White from its city council. A grand jury had recommended that he be unseated, because he wasn’t a registered voter when he was elected in November 2008. See this story. But the city’s position is that the voters elected him, so he stays.

On August 6, the 9th circuit issued an order setting a briefing schedule for Nader v Cronin, 08-16444. The issue in the case is whether a state may require six times as many signatures for a single independent presidential candidate as it requires for an entire ballot-qualified party. The case had been on hold during most of 2009 to see if the Hawaii legislature would amend the law. However, no legislator even introduced a bill on this subject. This case has been pending since 2004.

Nader’s brief is due in the 9th circuit on October 13; the state’s brief is due November 12. Any Nader rebuttal brief is due two weeks after the state’s brief.

The only other ballot access case from 2004 that is still alive, in any court, as far as is known, is the Pennsylvania Nader case over whether Nader must pay for the costs of determining that his 2004 petition lacked enough valid signatures. That case is in the Pennsylvania Supreme Court. The Court could issue an opinion at any time, or it might yet schedule another oral argument.