In a move akin to insurance firms taking on the task of reforming health care, the Legislature this week tackled the intractable issue of how to repair California’s hideously dysfunctional government, a story simply too absurd to be framed by the dozey forms of conventional Capitol reporting.
Amid a torrent of tiresome dispatches detailing the doings of the Orwellian-titled Select Committees on Improving State Government, Dan Walters was, as usual, ahead of the pack. Disdaining all the earnest talk, testimony and goo-goo nostrums about term limits, redistricting and campaign finance reform, the Big Fella offered a step-back, big-picture piece that was one-part David McCullough historic sweep and one-part Samuel Beckett existential hopelessness:
The much-vaunted checks and balances of the American system, designed by the nation’s founders who had revolted against a king and feared centralized power, create stasis in a society with as many rival factions as California has.
What may have worked in post-colonial, mono-cultural America doesn’t work very well in a postindustrial, multicultural state such as California, especially since we’ve added even more hurdles to decision-making, such as ballot measures and two-thirds votes.
With the relentlessness of daily deadlines smothering any pencil press effort to shed fresh light on a subject of such stultifying complexity and magnitude, it was left to Mark Paul, our favorite pundit at the New America Foundation, to offer a different take on the deadly reform issue.
Paul has a talent for presenting California Big Think stuff in an easily accessible and always readable way; over at Capitol Weekly, he offered some clear and creative insights on the subject of California’s collapse – a crisp 748-word analysis, framed by twin conceits of political schizophrenia as diagnosed by an alien come to earth.
On one hand, he would see a system of single-member legislative districts elected by plurality, a system well known to restrict representation to the two major parties, exaggerate the majority party’s strength, empower the ideological bases in each party, and render the votes of millions of Californians essentially moot in most legislative elections. The system’s driving principle? Create a majority and let it rule.
On the other hand, he would see, superimposed upon the first system, a second political system: a constitutional web of rules requiring supermajority legislative agreement about the very subjects, spending and taxes, over which the the parties and the electorate are most polarized. The driving principle of this second system? Do nothing important without broad consensus. The collision of these two contradictory governing principles– one majoritarian, one consensus– has produced gridlock, rising debt, and deep public disgust.
And then on the third hand…he would see that, in response to gridlock, voters have repeatedly used the initiative process, another majoritarian institution, to override the consensus principle, which was itself put in place to check the majority-rule principle. This political schizophrenia has led to all the expected symptoms in California, including apathy, delusions, disordered thinking, and the kind of citizen anger that marked the May special election. California doesn’t work because it can’t work.
Good stuff, bro.
But where was he when we needed him: Treasurer Bill Lockyer 
emerged as the unquestioned star of the legislature’s big reform hearing, offering a welcome dose of candor, mixed with a strong shot of No Exit despair, that no doubt skyrocketed his Google rating in a single afternoon.
While Walters was content to skim the cream of Lockyer’s money quotes (“We’re part of a system that was designed not to work…You are the captive of this environment, and I don’t see any way out” – Good God, man, step back from the ledge!) our old pal Greg Lucas showed he hasn’t lost his knack for public service journalism by offering fans of California’s Capitol an admiring and extended look at Lockyer’s greatest hits.
It ’s worth noting that veteran solon watcher Lucas headlined his post “Why isn’t this man California’s next governor,” a speculative notion that Calbuzz raised and floated several months ago, to the sound of resounding silence. With a proven ability to win statewide elections, and a nice comfy wad of campaign cash in the bank, Lockyer seemed well positioned to jump into the Democratic field back when it was still wide-open; his failure to do so led us to conclude he was simply intimidated by back-in-the-day memories of tangling with Jerry Brown.
We’re counting the days: Lisa Vorderbrueggen, last spotted trying to substitute Chinese takeout for pizza as Election Night dinner fare, reports over at Political Blotter that Hurricane Carly Fiorina is promising an “important announcement” in, um, Pleasanton on Nov. 6.
Be still our beating hearts – only 14 days to go! – what’s iCarly’s big secret?
Our bet is that she’s chosen Pleasanton to be the surprise recipient of a big free shipment of HP office equipment originally slated for Tehran.
Short takes
: With the Calbuzz National Affairs Desk decimated by budget cuts, we’re delighted to have Lou Cannon’s take on the closely watched upcoming elections for governor in New Jersey and Virginia…
Three pounds of crap in a two pound bag award to Politico’s Kenneth P Vogel for trying to sustain an analysis comparing Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck and Balloon Boy dad Richard Heene…
The Calbuzz Major League Baseball, Teeball and Ultimate Frisbee Desk was, of course, heart-broken to see the Dodgers’ world-class chokers cough it up to the Phillies in the National League Championship Series, but was somewhat assuaged by Bill Plashke’s superb commentary in the By God LA Times about Manny Ramirez taking an early shower during his team’s total collapse in the 9th inning of Game 4. Wait ’til next year.
Back when dinosaurs roamed the earth, trade unionists in the state celebrated Labor Day in a big way, and the biggest bash was always the Central Labor Council picnic at the Alameda County Fair Grounds.
Amid signs of the times displayed by workers, carrying such messages as “Boycott Coors Beer,” “Don’t Buy Salem-Vantage non-union cigarettes” and “Union carpenters make better studs,” Brown thundered an anti-free trade message to a crowd of about 3,000 on Sept. 5, 1977.
Scoop of the week: Green with envy kudos to the Chron’s irrepressible Carla Marinucci for her 
that super-model Kate Moss used coke on a fashion shoot a few years back, but only Brown’s office has doggedly pursued the possibility of filing grand theft charges against Moss for allegedly leaving the scene with a spoon belonging to the on-location caterer stuck up her nose.
Did David Hasselhoff defame Wendy’s? Brown has long believed that law enforcement agencies in other jurisdictions blundered by turning a blind eye to possible Product Disparagement civil law violations by burned-out Baywatch star David Hasselhoff, who was famously taped trying to get his choppers around a Baconator while falling down drunk, a video that may have sent sales of the once-popular Wendy’s menu item plummeting.
anonymous informant in the high-end L.A. cosmetology industry, Brown is reportedly close to filing charges against the pop princess for not reimbursing a Tarzana hair salon for the use of high speed clippers with which she whacked off all her hair a few years back. With interest, Brown investigators say, the tab by now may well be close to the mid-three figures.
David Duchovny’s sex addiction scam. Brown’s undercover agents have developed confidential information that after “X Files” star Duchovny was released from rehab for sex addiction, he plotted to fleece and seduce thousands of gullible libertines by inviting them to join him in steamy sessions of a new, scam 12-step program.
“We’ll have the budget for the coast that has tax increases and services,” Lockyer told the Turgid Times. “And in a bunch of other areas in Central and Southern California that don’t have tax increases … their public schools are closed a month of the year – and see what happens.”
posse is busy trumpeting her $6.5 million fundraising haul as evidence that she’s connecting with Real Voters, her web site still tells another, very different tale: that her Megness lives in terror of sitting down to answer questions from California reporters who understand state issues.
It’s on: Back before the Earth cooled, Capitol lore held that nobody got serious about the budget until the temperature in Sacramento hit 100 degrees. It’s tougher to apply the rule these days, when budget fights span the seasons, but even at that, it’s clear that with highs in the mid-70s forecast for days to come, the 2009 budget battle is only starting to get cranked up.
Dark Horses for Courses: The Sunne McPeak for Governor boomlet set off by a Chron blog post by Carla Marinucci lasted little more than a day, until the resourceful Lisa Vorderbrueggen knocked it down on her Coco Times ![danielle_steel_spotlight[1]](http://www.calbuzz.com/wp-content/uploads/danielle_steel_spotlight1.jpg "danielle_steel_spotlight[1]")
Danielle Decker: If this whole journalism doesn’t work out for our friend Cathy Decker at the L.A. Times, she’s got a great future as a writer of romance novels, as she demonstrated in her, uh, close
