Throw California's Legislature out if it can't get the job done

During last year's state budget fiasco, I suggested that the California Legislature had outlived its usefulness, and the Senate and the Assembly should be abolished. A year later, our lawmakers have proved the wisdom of my idea.

The 40 state senators and 80 Assembly members have wasted the past 12 months, and are now in another budget standoff. While the Legislature hasn't been abolished, it has acted as if it doesn't exist. The lawmakers take up space, but they don't do anything.

It seems their main function is to provide jobs for their staff members and help the special interests get their hands deep into the California treasury. If you want them to fix our roads and bridges, solve the health-care crisis or provide enough water to a thirsty state, forget about it.

We'd all be better off if the two houses of the Legislature were replaced by a different legislative system. How could it be any worse? I like the idea of a unicameral legislature, but there would have to be a provision that the current batch of gridlockers would be banned from running.

I can think of many reasons a single legislative body would be an improvement. We wouldn't need all the redundant committees and staff that we now have in the Senate and the Assembly. The governor would have to negotiate with only one Democratic leader and one Republican leader from a single legislative house.

Right now the four legislative leaders -- they call themselves the "Big Four"; I call them the "Big Do-Nothings" -- go back to their special-interest pals and tell them how they are holding the line by protecting them in the budget.

Legislative leaders live in such an insular world, they think the public agrees with the budget mess they've created. But the Democrats listen only to the public-employee unions who want bigger raises and better pensions, and the Republicans listen only to the anti-tax folks, who'd rather see government collapse than serve the people.

There are millions of the rest of us who are not being represented by the Legislature.

These so-called leaders mostly are extremists from both sides of the political spectrum who could not get elected to their seats if their districts hadn't been carved out to protect them.

That's why it's important for voters to pass Proposition 11, the redistricting reform measure on the November ballot.

Here's all you need to know about Proposition 11: The prison guards' union has just given more than a half-million dollars to fight the redistricting measure. The basic rule in California politics is that if the guards' union is for it, taxpayers should be against it.

The guards know that a fair redistricting system won't allow them to get the public-financed goodies that they now get from the Legislature. That's why the guards are giving a big chunk of their union dues to kill reform.

But Proposition 11, as good as it is, won't solve all the problems facing the California Legislature. We need many more changes. Here are other reforms that I have proposed several times:

-- Legislators must show results or they won't get paid. Each year, establish three legislative goals and if the lawmakers don't meet them, they forfeit a year's pay.

-- Limit the number of bills. More than 2,000 bills are introduced each year, and they are usually trivial. Cut that back to three, not counting the budget bill. That's it. Take care of that important business; then go home. No more bills banning dogs from sitting on drivers' laps.

-- Reduce the requirement to pass a state budget from two-thirds of the legislators in each house to 55 percent. That's still a super-majority, but would prevent a handful of ideologues from blocking a budget deal that most Californians support.

-- Adjust term limits, but only if redistricting reform passes. The problem with term limits is they throw out the good lawmakers along with the bad ones. But elections must be fair, so term limits must be coupled with redistricting reform.

-- Get rid of legislators' expense accounts. If lawmakers had to live like the rest of us, they might be more willing to solve problems. Make them buy their own cars and pay for their own gas. The $179 a day in expense payments they get is just a scam to fatten their wallets.

If the voters forced these reforms on the Legislature, we would get a better brand of lawmaking out of Sacramento. But there's not a chance of all these reforms passing, so the next best thing is abolishing the Senate and Assembly and starting over.

We have a broken system, and you can't fix it by doing nothing.

(Jim Boren is The Fresno Bee 's editorial-page editor. E-mail him at jboren(at)fresnobee.com.)

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