Special Interests Threaten More Than Signature Gatherers
To Kill a Constitution
by Fred E. Foldvary, Senior Editor, 15 February 2010
The forces of the status quo are preventing Californians from changing their constitution. Although most Californians recognize that the state’s political system is kaput, the legal means to change the political system have been thwarted by intimidation.If liberty has a soul, a heart, and a mind, the soul of liberty is natural moral law, the heart is a constitution which enacts natural law, and the mind is the ability to change the constitution when it is found to be faulty and deficient in protecting the public welfare.
California’s first constitution was adopted in 1849. Then in 1879 the original constitution was replaced by a new constitution for California. Unfortunately, good examples, such as the brevity of the US Constitution, are often not copied, as the 1879 Constitution is the third largest in the world. Many provisions that should be in statute law are instead in the 1879 Constitution. Even worse, there have been several hundred amendment and revisions to the state Constitution.
During the “Progressive” era of the 1800s, reformers wanted the people to be able to directly vote on legislation. With the growth of the state’s population, this initiative process now requires millions of dollars and paid signature gatherers to place a proposition on the ballot. Special interests are thus now tied to the initiative process just as much as to the legislature.
The state government has suffered chronic deficits, which the legislature has not confronted. The state is resorting to tricks such as withholding more funds for taxes on wages, even though the funds are later returned as refunds. Despite tax increases and budget cuts, the state faces financial disaster, and has the worst credit rating of any U.S. state. The previous governor was recalled and replaced by shining knight Arnold Schwarzenegger, who pledged to terminate the disorder, but he has been unable to repair the dysfunction, because the very structure of governance is hopelessly kaput.
Many Californians are now convinced that the broken political system can only be remedied by replacing the constitutional hodgepodge with a new structure. The Constitution of California states, in Article II, Section I, “'All political power is inherent in the people, ... and they have the right to alter or reform it when the public good may require.” But the Constitution does not authorize a constitutional convention, so the first step is a ballot proposition that would authorize the convention and new constitution.
But “Repair California,” the movement to adopt a new constitution, has been thwarted by the special interests that benefit from the broken system, namely the signature-gathering oligopolists. Repair California has accused the six big signature-gathering companies of blacklisting their signature gatherers. Even worse, this clique is accused of destroying valid signatures and submitting fake ones. There have even been death threats reported against Repair California personae. Repair California has sent case-and-desist letters to these firms, and is reported to be preparing a lawsuit against them. Repair California has also had to hire security guards to protect their leaders and property.
On February 12, 2010, Repair California announced that it was putting the campaign for a new constitution on hold, even though polls by Repair California have found that 70 percent of Californians favor a new constitution.
Many of the signature gatherers are subcontractors of the oligopolists. These firms oppose a new constitution, because it could eliminate or limit placing propositions on the ballot. There could also be other special interests such as the establishment political parties that are seeking to thwart a convention.
The blacklisting tactics that threaten to deprive signature gatherers of their livelihood thwart the constitutional rights of Californians to circulate petitions. The special interests who benefit from the dysfunction are preventing significant reforms, and evidently the status-quo politicians are allowing this intimidation to take place. There is no longer a genuine democracy when a few special interests can stifle the desire of the majority to change the governance system.
The question now is whether the majority of Californians can become outraged by this illegal attempt to kill a new constitution. The state can no longer rely on rollovers of its debt, as it is heading down the stream to a public-finances crash. It’s a tragedy, since California was once a golden state, a natural cornucopia, attracting immigrants from all over the world. But now entrepreneurs are fleeing the state as it heads towards calamity, and all because the people have not understood the principles of sound public finance.
-- Fred Foldvary
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Copyright 2010 by Fred E. Foldvary. All rights reserved. No part of this material may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, which includes but is not limited to facsimile transmission, photocopying, recording, rekeying, or using any information storage or retrieval system, without giving full credit to Fred Foldvary and The Progress Report.
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