News that Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is considering raiding funds specified for local road repairs is hardly surprising, but it is one more sign of how broken California's political system really is. The governor has his eye on $1.9 billion in gas tax funds that are supposed to be used for road repairs, maintenance, and improvements to try to close a $24 billion budget gap.
But California's budget problems won't be fixed by raiding -- yet again -- local governments' funds. Instead, a wholesale fix to return California to representative democracy and away from the straight democracy that the initiative process has detoured us into is needed. Whether that's best accomplished by a constitutional convention, as some have advocated, or by an effort to curtail the initiative process isn't clear, but something must be done.
Representative for a reason
This country's founding fathers wisely chose to implement a representative democracy to insulate the country from the tyranny of the majority and to allow decisions to be made by representatives who can study the issues, vote with foresight, and be held accountable periodically to the people they represent at elections. Representative democracy allows for the rule of law instead of the rule of the masses.
Big problem demands big fix
But by circumventing representative democracy with the initiative process, we've created a situation in which the state legislature has control over a small percentage of its budget thanks to ballot-box budgeting measures, in which its ability to address crises by raising funds is severely limited thanks to the requirement for a two-thirds majority for budget and tax passage, and by demanding that the state fund specific programs at specific levels regardless of the economic conditions in which it is operating.
The prospect of making dramatic changes to California's political system is scary. But there's something that's even more frightening: the status quo.
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