Secondly, the people who have a life — who are involved in little league, who have two jobs, who are involved in a church, who take care of parents instead of putting them away somewhere, and thus that are apolitical — are not going to have the time to do this. The ideologues of each neighborhood, the gang tuffs, those on welfare with time on their hands, are going to be the ones who end up the self appointed neighborhood leaders.

Ask yourself a question: are your neighbors nice people who you never have a disagreement with about their dog, zoning issues, an encroachment into your property or some neighborhood nuisance. There is nothing virtuous about being a neighbor.

Read the book titled “Neighbors: The Destruction of the Jewish Community in Jedwabne, Poland about how one half of a small town murdered the other half.

James Madison and the founders of the U.S. form of government wanted checks and balances not a plebiscite based on the Greek model of democracy. This is a populist notion that “small is beautiful” when in reality neighbors are often prone to disputes, lawsuits, and viciousness. Think: HOA (Homeowners Association).

The 12,000 neighborhood legislators make $1000 a year with no staff, office or benefits. They are essentially volunteers. They work out of their home or office and never leave. There is no cluster….because the same number of people go to Sacramento, 120 to serve on the Working Committees. These committees do the same work as the current legislature.

The 99% back in the neighborhoods get an up or down vote over the Internet. Easy. They will be in contact regularly with their Working Committee member. There will be communication.

What there won’t be is a lot of fundraising so special interests won’t control as they do now.

Even if legislators can’t take contributions – like under a public financing system – you still have to worry about IE – independent expenditures. Any individual or group can run TV ads in a huge district and influence either way a legislator. That is the pure exercise of power.

The NL makes that power less powerful but empowering people to counter it by walking door to door and making arguments based upon facts and intellect, not 30 second ads or mailers

The problem is that at some point in size, election campaigns become too large to be low dollar, person to person affairs.

Check with people who have run for city councils in districts as large as 100,000. They become media campaigns – maybe not TV but mailers. That number represents about 25,000 registered households. That’s way too many to be effectively walked.

In Illinois – my home state – districts are about 150,000 and the legislature is controlled by special interests just like CA.

That’s why they need to be this small – to make it so that people who care about the community and have a life outside politics – can serve without giving up that life.

John Cox

In 2013 if there is a way to bezzle the system the politicians will find a way to do it, regardless of what that ratio is. Plus, you’d have to fund another 12,000 generous salaries, benefits, retirements, travel expenses, per diems, etc…. And think about how difficult it would be to revamp the legislative infrastructure and process to accomodate 12,000 lawmakers. It would end up being a huge cluster…..

Better to make big revisions in the campaign financing laws so that politicians can’t take legal bribes in exchange for votes (as they do now)and if they violate those laws it’s mandatory prison – no exceptions. That’s the way you clean up the system. Not by creating more politicians to rip off the system.

The real problem is that politicians enact laws that protect themselves from personal punishment or consequences for acts that would land a normal citizen in jail. And that will NEVER change until the electorate wises up and stops re-electing 95% of the incumbents who are responsibile for the dirty system that continues to worsen.

Two proposals;

1) leave the senate the same but drop the assembly district down to 100,000 people. That would be the size of the city of Antioch in the Bay area or Ventura in SoCal. It would be like running for a local city council seat.

2) or have the five top vote getters elected from each of the 80 assembly seats. Each voter could cast five votes.