Community Forum on State Government

After months of planning and research, Congregation Sha'ar Zahav, SFOP, the Progressive Jewish Alliance, and PICO California finally held our public forum on the morass that is California's state government. Authors Peter Shrag and Mark Paul set out the various reasons why we can no longer govern ourselves: too small a legislature for the size of our population, supermajority requirements for passing budgets and raising taxes, limitations on reassessing corporate property for taxation, term limits, etc. Since the meeting was scheduled opposite the opening night of the World Series, and our own San Francisco Giants were playing, the turnout could have been dismal. However, concerned folks from Congregation Sha'ar Zahav, other SFOP congregations, and a few PICO affiliates around Northern California contributed to our total attendance of 101.

I felt moved to wax lyrical in our debrief afterwards. When asked to state how we were feeling, I said: "hopeful. It feels like we've lit the fuse on an explosion for good."

Then later I said: "I have been seeing the budget mess as a group of social justice activists scrambling for crumbs from a shrinking pie, when what we really need to do is get into the kitchen and stock it with fresh ingredients, new cooks, and good recipes, and turn out many luscious, big pies. But looking at the mess that is our governmental system, deadlocked because ballot initiatives amending the state constitution have tied legislators' hands yet voters blame them for being unable to act, I'm beginning to see it more as a huge Gordian knot, and we're starting to find some loose ends that we can use to untangle it, step by step."

In particular, IMHO, Californians should vote next week, yes on Prop. 25 and no on Prop. 26. The vote on 25 would start to peel away the supermajority requirements that are keeping the legislature from adopting a budget in a timely fashion, and the vote on 26 would refrain from instituting a supermajority requirement on other government functions.