Reforming California Government
The San Jose Mercury News is going to spend the next week outlining six proposals to reform California’s state government. The proposals include:
? Permit the state budget to be approved on a simple majority vote in the Legislature, instead of the current two-thirds majority.
? Ease California’s legislative term limits, which are among the strictest in the nation.
? Take the power to draw legislative districts away from the Legislature and give it to some neutral body, so there are fewer politically safe districts.
? Simplify the way the state funds schools, to make it fairer and to give local school districts more flexibility.
? Redesign the relationship between the state and local governments — principally cities and counties — to give the locals more independence and certainty in their financing.
? Alter the mix of taxes that fund state government, to make the revenue stream less volatile; then require the budget to actually balance, instead of merely requiring the governor to propose a balanced budget.
The Mercury News is going to take up one of these reforms a day this week.
California needs reforms in each of these six areas, and making these needed changes would go a long way to helping the state government function more effectively. California voters are going to have a chance to begin implementing a couple of them in the March election.
Hopefully they will pass, and more of these ideas will follow them to the ballot.
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