By DAN WALTERS, Sacramento Bee

Scott Pattison, executive director of the National Association of State Budget Officers, testified at a recent legislative hearing on how California might improve its bollixed budget process by emulating other states.

Exactly one year from today, California voters will pretend that electing a new governor will somehow improve their chronically ineffective state government.

One of the more obscure -- and probably more important -- of California's many political conflicts pits an organization called EdVoice against the California Teachers Association and other school unions.

It centers on our ever-deepening education crisis, manifested in low test scores and high dropout rates, especially among black and Latino kids.

They're fighting over water in Sacramento, but lurking just below the surface is the real issue -- how and where California develops land in the years and decades ahead.

In a semi-arid state such as California, whether land remains undeveloped, is cultivated for agriculture, or is covered with houses and shopping centers depends almost entirely on the availability of water.

The "Steve Peace death march," so-named for the California legislator who pushed a massive overhaul of the state's electric power system through the Legislature in 1996, occupies a special niche in Capitol lore.

Remember the old saying, "Once burned, twice shy"? It's supposed to mean that when one has a bad experience, one should be more cautious in similarly dangerous circumstances.

Widespread public disdain for a dysfunctional Legislature -- just 13 percent of voters approved of the job it was doing in a recent poll -- has spawned a rhetorical game in political, academic and media circles that goes something like this:

"Everything would be OK if only they would just (fill in the blank)."

Ironically -- or perhaps prophetically -- the California High Speed Rail Authority's Web site bolsters the economic viability of a proposed statewide bullet train system by quoting an official of Lehman Brothers.

Much has been made in the media -- certainly in this column -- and in civic and academic circles about the California Legislature's wheel-spinning on the budget, water, education and other high-profile issues.

A growing public perception of political dysfunction is fueling drives for a fundamental overhaul, including a proposed constitutional convention.

When California's government employees gained collective bargaining rights three-plus decades ago, thanks to then-Gov. Jerry Brown, it was depicted as merely giving those on the public payroll equality with private workers, but in fact it went way beyond parity.