One of the first people I saw at the July 17 Repair California event was Bill Rosendahl, and then for a moment while he was talking to the guy next to me, he shook my hand. It was a random handshake that did not lead to any conversation or even an introduction, a seemingly purposeless handshake until you think about it: He left me to contemplate and publicize my minor brush with celebrity (“I shook Bill Rosendahl’s hand!”) knowing that these brushes do leave people a little favorably impressed. After all, I root for CC Sabathia largely because I talked to him for five minutes, and in a politician’s case the act of winning people over is more clearly in the selfish interest. Athletes may or may not want to be popular, but politicians need popularity, and so they shake as many hands and hold as many babies as possible.
The thing is, Rosendahl didn’t need to win me over. First of all, I’m not in his district. But second of all, before I left L.A. in 2001, he was the host of a little local news panel airing on public access in L.A., a show on which he hosted candidate debates between folks running for the Santa Monica school board; folks running for Insurance Commissioner; and folks with different views on whether they ought to develop some lagoon out in Playa Vista. In theory, I loved the show, because it tried to draw people into the most-local democracy around them, the most-accessible and yet most-often-ignored part of the political process. In practice, I seldom could watch a whole segment without flipping channels, because as accessible as local democracy is, it’s not usually as entertaining as “That 70's Show.” But when Rosendahl was introduced at the conference last night pushing for a new constitutional convention in California, when I was reminded that since I last saw him he’s joined the L.A. City Council, and when the intro noted that while others get jaded about politics, “Bill still has that gleam in his eye,” I thought to myself that that was no surprise. He had been involved in “the media,” but always in the most positive, idealistic way possible. He had always been a true believer.
If Rosendahl’s presence was fitting at this event, it wasn’t because it was a true believer. It’s rather because his low-profile version of celebrity was fitting with the low-profile nature of the Friday night event. On Saturday, I get priced out of the room--Friday night’s free conference in Santa Monica will be followed by a Saturday conference at USC in downtown L.A. that includes a $25 price tag, a catered lunch, and a speech by the mayor (who will probably make some jokes about how if the state government wasn’t such a disaster, he might have decided to run for governor after all). Friday night, on the other hand, was co-hosted by the mayor of Santa Monica on the one hand and a member of the Santa Monica board of trustees on the other. It was low-key all the way, from the lady counting people coming in with a pad of paper and a hand-written tally (a count that ran to about 125) to the microphones that took an extra minute turning on a fact that was quickly pointed out by the self-important or mostly-deaf people in the audience who were eager to shout out “Your mike’s not on” in interruption.
The conference began with a taped speech from the first Repair California conference, one up in Sacramento by SacBee columnist Dan Walters. He wondered: If you don’t like what’s going on in the stage government as it is run currently, who do you go to? For example, if you’re upset with your local school district, who’s at fault. His answer: with this current system, no one is truly responsible. Our state government is filled with so many checks and balances that you practically need unanymous approval to get anything done. Some of the checks and balances were written into state law at the last constitutional convention 130 years ago, and some of them have been added as Californians have gotten increasingly exasperated by and distrustful of their own state lawmakers. One of the checks/balances that was most under attack at this particular event was the two-thirds requirement, which requires two-thirds of the legislature to pass a balanced budget, or to approve taxes. “I’m not a policy wonk,” I wrote on the feedback form they passed out last night, so feel free to correct any details I get wrong. I liked Walters for his charisma, but my notes fail to capture the charisma of his message. Luckily, like I said, his speech was taped--so if you want to capture it yourself, you can do so on youtube. As they set up the microphones and turned off his taped speech, I mentioned to the lady sitting next to me that I had briefly worried they would just sit us down and tell us to watch a tape of the entire Sacramento conference--and like I said, I could have done that from home.
Trying to embed that video--here's a link..
The best thing about the venue were the 15 or so balcony seats that filled up pretty quickly. Other than that, the venue was easily big enough for the rest of us; it reminded me of the rooms that hosted my college lecture halls. On the stage, though, the furniture was eccentric enough (a couple of chairs, a couple of couches, one of them green) to make me think I was about to see a play. But then out came the panel, with ex-Santa Monica mayor Mike Feinstein doing the introductions.
The first speaker he introduced was grey-bearded Bob Stern, president of the L.A.-based Center for Governmental Studies. Stern was onhand to talk about the initiative process, which last night’s audience (myself included) was clearly fed up with. (We said in our show of hands in answer to one of Stern’s questions.) But he told us that most Californians are far more fed up with the legislature than they are with the initiative process, and what’s more, we would be hard-pressed to come up with an initiative that the majority of Californians would clearly agree that they regret. So then he quickly moved along to a few goals we might have in amending the initiative process--among them would be having fewer initiatives and better-drafted initiatives. And then he made specific proposals to achieve these goals, such as allowing initiative authors to amend their proposals even after they’ve gathered signatures (provided that the amendment furthers the original initiative’s intent). His most interesting proposal (IMHO) was the idea of having initiative authors work with the legislature on potential compromises before putting their initiatives on the ballot. So if somebody wanted to pass an initiative requiring the free availability of sauerkraut at all professional baseball condiment bars, and if that person gathered the requisite number of signatures to get this initiative onto the ballot, then this person would get to meet with the state legislature to see if the legislature might want to circumvent the initiative process by simply passing legislation to accomplish what the initiative sets out to do. There could be room for compromise at such meetings--perhaps the legislature might pass a law making free sauerkraut a requirement only at major league baseball condiment bars, and if this were enough for the author of the bill, then again we would be spared the initiative.
What I liked about Stern was that he may have avoided even saying out loud what his most-important conclusion was. On the Feedback Form handed out to all of us, there were various things we could circle we each would emphasize as our own pet projects in changing California’s constiution. On that sheet, I had circled “initiative process” and written “get rid of it,” but the subtext of Stern’s message made me cross out the latter messsage to write, instead, “reform it.” Without saying it out loud, he realized that any group that made eliminating the initiative process one of its goals would be seen as anti-democratic. So as crappy as the initiative process has been lately, Repair California is not recommending its elimination, but rather its reform--because they’re politically savvy, because they’re trying to make a proposal that will be popular, that will actually win votes. You see, to call a constitutional convention, they’re going to need to pass some initiatives of their own. Stern proceeded to give us the timeline they’ve created. In November of 2010, they want two things on the ballot: a constitutional amendment allowing a convention to be called by a vote of the people and an initiative making said call. And then the constitution the delegates come up with would be ready for our approval by referendum in 2012.
The next speaker was Steven Hill, the political reform diretor from San Francisco’s New America Foundation and a guy who looked like Stern minus 10 or 15 years. Both wore blue blazers; both wore full beards; and both spoke swiftly, eloquently, and without notes. Anyway, the intro to Hill was not so much focused on his background (nor on his similarity in appearance to Stern) but on his subject matter: If we’re going to call a convention to rewrite California’s constitution, who are going to be the delegates? So he sets it up: we’ve got three options: we can either a) appoint them; b) elect them; or c) choose random citizen-delegates, an option I wrote in my notes as “jury-duty them.” In doing so, I kind of overlooked that it was that third and final option he was getting ready to push. That’s why he didn’t say, “jury duty them.” His argument goes like this: if you appoint them, then who appoints them? Out of 14 other states who have called constitutional conventions, none of them allow the delegates to be appointed. It’s just not the way to go. And if you elect them, then you end up with a body that looks an awful lot like the legislature. And right now, the fact is, Californians have next to zero confidence in the legislature, so chances are they wouldn’t like their elected delegates either.
So the Bay Area Council’s proposal (Hill explained, and more on the BAC later) is to randomly select 400 delegates to draw up this constitution. You’d get truck drivers, you’d get waitresses--you’d get regular people. You’d pay them good money so that they wouldn’t want to resist doing it. You’d put them through intense training over the first couple of weeks, so that they’d do a good job. At this point, Hill appealed to the optimists among us who want to believe that everyone isn’t stupid. What this comes down to, he said, is whether we would trust ourselves to do this, and whether we would trust our neighbors. It’s kind of a nice idea to think that maybe we could trust ourselves or our neighbors. I admit I’m pretty easy, but he won me over--in part because while I’m not sure how the 400-person “deliberative democracy” they’re proposing would work logistically (with a big lecture hall? with lots of small-group workshops?), I immediately thought of the reality show to kick all other reality shows to the curb. “Take 400 strangers, put them in a house, and have them re-write the constitution of California.” This would be a reality show that you wouldn’t feel guilty about watching--hell, it would be your civic duty to watch it! I like the idea that a political process that we ought to pay attention to out of duty could actually be entertaining. Bill Rosendahl could host.
So by this time, the assembled panel has got me eating out of its hand; they’re all well-spoken, it sounds like they’ve thought this thing through pretty well, and I’m thinking we all ought to adjourn now before a lousy speaker comes along and kills my political-nerd-buzz. So up stepped Jim Wunderman, the CEO of the business group known as “Bay Area Council,” which happens to be the group that has put this whole drive for a constitutional convention together. Wunderman looked to be a healthy 50-year-old, built and comfortable, one foot up on his knee as he relaxed in a beige blazer and made light of his own baldness (“These lights are bright; I must be reflecting a lot”). He was late arriving (and he made a remark about how in the “repaired” California, there won’t be traffic congestion. He seems a little slow to get rolling to his theme, but eventually he does get rolling and he gets off some good lines. He says that Sacramento is home to 1,200 registered lobbyists. He says that our schools have gone from the nation’s best to the nation’s worst in an alarmingly short time. He says that our overcrowded prison system costs us $49,500 per prisoner to year, prompting the suggestion that maybe we should just send ‘em to Harvard. And then he sold the system Hill introduced. He said that this has to be done by people with as little stake in the current system as possible. It has to be done by the people, he said, and thus, he and his people hadd thought good and hard trying to craft it so that people will vote for it. At this point, my mind wandered ahead to dinner with my fiance’s work friends next Wednesday, at which point I imagine myself trying to explain what I’d seen to them. Will they think it’s cool because I describe it with enthusiasm, or will they dismiss it as liberal b.s. because they know that is my bent and theirs is more conservative? As if anticipating my wandering thoughts, Wunderman closes by selling his pitch with some conservative rhetoric. About the schools, he says, It’s not just about pumping money into it (although there is some of that that’s necessary). It’s about rationalizing the way money flows through the system--Sacramento needs a money-management system.
My enthusiasm began its inevitable wane with the speech of Mark Paul, Hill’s colleague at NAF. The white-haired Paul looks like a slightly bloated Leslie Nielsen, dressed as sharp as Frank Drebbin was when he dived on top of the Queen of England and got himself kicked off of Police Squad. Sitting comfortably in a wheelchair, Paul read a speech so stuffed with policy details that I don’t have the heart (the brain, actually--I don’t have the brain) to describe it all here. Hall was followed by Julia Brownley, a State Assembleymember from the Fighting 41st district, who had been sitting up there suffering all the attacks upon her colleagues quite well. Brownley, wearing a pink jacket over a white shirt and holding her sharp-toed shoe like a weapon in front of her, deviated from her prepared statement more often than Paul did and was more entertaining for it. But enthusiasm continued to wane, because she lacked enthusiasm--her tepid praise for the whole idea seemed in keeping with Wunderman’s suggestion that this convention needs to be pushed forward by people who aren’t major stakeholders, because once people get to be stakeholders in Sacramento, then they are vested in the system as it currently is. Rosendahl’s prepared speech opened with the blunt statement, “The state is screwing local governments.” Rosendahl read quickly, as if knowing (as I do right now in recounting the event) that the policy details were getting old and he would also need/want to do something to keep his audience awake, and so he finished up with a few unrehearsed shouts of encouragement, like a cheerleader. We can do this! Bill was followed by another late arrival, Santa Monica city councilwoman Pam O’Connor. As I told Pam as we were walking out to our cars at the end of the night, she wore a great red scarf, and so when she sat down I thought she was going to be good, and she was good--speaking from the heart, off the top of her head, and suggesting that “we’re going to have to take action, and we’re going to have to be fearless about it.” We’re going to have to be bold--we can’t sit around and wait for a total consensus where everybody agrees. Let’s just do this! With that, Pam drew some pretty loud applause from Rosendahl on the other side of the stage.
So at this point, it was time for some questions, which we had all been allowed to write down on blue cards which were passed to the front. Regrettably, the moderators (who coincidentally were named Feinstein and Greenstein) decided to try to get all the questions in by asking them all at once, or asking big clusters of questions that were supposedly related. The one good answer I remember coming out of the Q-and-A was by Brownley and Wunderman, responding to the question of whether the legislature could call the convention. Brownley said that the legislature can do it, “But guess what? It requires a two-thirds vote.” Wunderman said that’s the way it should happen, and he’s met with some legislators to ask them to do it, but “consideration of this hasn’t been robust in the legislature. They’re too busy with the budget.”
And then we were all back out in the foyer, and I was on my way to the bathroom when I found myself just feet away from O’Connor and Rosendahl, who were sharing a moment, and I almost interrupted them to start sucking up, but I stopped short out of shyness. That’s why I loved being a reporter, it gave me a good reason not to obey my shy instincts which make me keep to myself all too often. So I let them talk without interrupting, and then Rosendahl was checking his messages, so I still didn’t want to interrupt, but I felt kind of stupid standing there not knowing anybody, and so then when my own phone rang, I took a call from my old friend Sellers and spent the next 20 minutes standing outside the bathroom talking to him when I should have been in that foyer networking, making friends and maybe telling Bill Rosendahl how little it surprised me to see that he had decided to enter the public service that he had previously covered as a TV host. Alas, in the end, I got to shake Rosendahl’s hand, but he didn’t get to meet me. He left right around when I got off the phone, and my failures in networking continued when, after making my compliment of O’Connor’s scarf, I failed to give her my card. I lack stamina, that’s always been my problem, and so it’s no surprise that the best networking I did came at the very start of the event. As I drove to the building around 6:15, I noticed a loudly-painted car behind me that followed me into the parking lot and parked across the lot. Amazingly, 2010 assembly candidate Peter Thottam has given his car a custom paint job dedicated to advertising his candidacy. Alas, he doesn't yet have the giant bullhorn tied to the top.
Yes, that will have to do as a final photo, as Thottam doesn't have any photos of his new car up on the Web yet. But I did get his card while I was complimenting his car as we walked in, right before the Rosendahl handshake, and so I am able to link you to his Web site--which, as it turns out, features pictures of him and Rosendahl. I guess one of those photos will have to be a nice-enough way to wrap this all up--that, and the advisory that more on the Repair California movement can be found not only at repaircalifornia.org but also at reformcalifornia.org. Good night, Canada.
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