By Michael Warnken

Sept. 10, 2012

Until the public shooting of two Hispanic men by local police just a month ago, Anaheim was mostly known for the Anaheim Angels, Gene Autry and Disneyland. Today, we are well aware it is not the happiest place on earth. Anaheim, like many other parts of the state, has a gang problem and it seems to a have a police problem, too, as the recent shootings by police occurred in broad daylight under questionable circumstances.

Mayor Tom Tait called for an investigation into these incidents by the offices of California Attorney General Kamala Harris and U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder. However, local residents were not satisfied, and many felt that the police had crossed the line, especially since there had been six other similar events this year, five of which were fatal.

Most of the police brutality was focused around Hispanic citizens, who make up half of city residents. However, because many residents are immigrants who are not citizens, perhaps about one third of the city’s eligible voters are Hispanic.

The council’s current makeup is: Lori Galloway, half Hispanic, half Filipina; Harry Sidhu, a Sikh immigrant from India; and two Anglos, Gail Eastman and Kris Murray.

So Hispanic activists began calling for changes in the city’s electoral system. Along with others, the activists believe there is a connection between the electoral system in Anaheim and the violence.

The Orange County Register also reported:

“Those pushing for change point to the elegant neighborhoods of Anaheim Hills. The city’s current voting system has concentrated overwhelming political power there: Four of the city’s five council members are residents.

“That far exceeds the percentage of city voters who live there, a disparity that districts would remedy — according to their supporters — by more evenly distributing council seats. A review of voter-registration numbers by ZIP code shows that the Anaheim Hills area accounts for less than a fourth of the city’s voters.

“By comparison, the central part of the city — including Disneyland but also the hard-life neighborhoods at the heart of recent protests — has more than a third of the city’s voters but only one resident council member. And the west side of Anaheim accounts for about 40 percent of the city’s registered voters, but is home to no council member.”

On August 8, the Anaheim city council held a special hearing where a proposal by Tait was considered to raise the number of council members from four to six, with calls for an increase to as many as eight. Calls also went up to switch from the current system of at-large elections for council members to a system in which members are elected by geographical district. The council did not vote to send the proposal to the voters, but tabled it for further investigation.

At-Large Elections

An at-large electoral system exists when all the representatives in a city are elected by the entire populace. The alternative to this is known as “district elections,” in which city council members are each elected from different geographical districts of the same population.

District elections give smaller areas of people direct access to a representative. The people of that district knows who represents them, and are able hold them more directly accountable for their actions and decisions. Representatives in at-large districts are less accountable and like to claim they “represent everyone,” but in actual practice, they tend to ignore everyone equally, except those who are celebrities, powerful special interests and large campaign donors.

At-large electoral systems are dubious to begin with, as they have long been used to suppress minority political participation. This  practice was mastered in the American South, where cities with black populations of 40 percent to 50 percent or more would not have a single black city council representative.  The problem was so bad in the South that the Voting Rights Act was passed by Congress in 1965 to address this and other voting-rights problems. The act forced cities in the Southern states to hold single-member district elections.

As the largest city in Orange County and the 10th largest city in the state, with a population of about 340,000 people, Anaheim should have single-member district elections. A move to such a system would open the city up to more electoral diversity.  Just as juries and grand juries should reflect a cross section of a community, any properly formed electoral system should reflect the participants that they represent in a meaningful way.

Local Representation

In a reader rebuttal in the Orange County Register, council member Kris Murray justified the tabling of the proposal of moving to six members elected by district:

“There are still many questions to be answered surrounding those shootings, and several independent investigations are already underway to do so. Although some have asserted that there may be a correlation between the two issues, the city would be irresponsible to undertake wholesale change of its entire electoral system without first providing an opportunity for extensive citizen dialogue, careful legal analysis, and consideration of the options available to meet voters’ concerns for fair representation.”

But Police officers, judges and city administrative employees are added to governmental institutions without much thought. It’s silly to suggest that moving to district elections and adding more city councilors to the most important branch in a representative republic requires months of review. So, let’s indulge Murray on that point and consider the proposal for an increase in members and single member districts.

Currently, each of the four council members in Anaheim represents all 340,000 residents of Anaheim. If single-member districts were implemented without increasing the number of council members, each of four district would comprise about 85,000 people. An increase to six members would create districts of just under 60,000 people. (In both cases, I’m assuming the mayor, who sits on the council, would continue to be elected at large.)

But in evaluating this proposal, one simple question that needs to be asked is this: Is that real representation? Is that truly adequate? Can anyone even begin to honestly suggest that a city councilor can represent 60,000 or more people? So, why stop at just six members? At some point, the fundamental question needs to be asked: “How many people can a single city council member adequately represent?”

True representation means agency, direct contact and access by all. This might mean proper representation leads to significantly more elected council members (or their equivalents) Consider, for example the fact that Chicago has 50 aldermen and New York City has 51 city council members. More is not a problem; in fact, from a legislative standpoint, these cities work quite well.

More decentralization is needed

In the end, representatives are elected to resolve problems. More representatives would indeed help address Anaheim’s current problems — challenges that are not limited to gang violence and police brutality. If the city council had enough representatives, they could hold their own hearings investigating the police, like a state legislature or congress would and try to work them out rather than depending on the state and federal attorneys general. This amounts to self-government.

Further, at-large elections serve to protect incumbents from challengers because of the influence city employees have on such elections. Through their unions, city employees (including police) are more able to concentrate their influence and back their slate of candidates in at-large elections. The fewer representatives, the fewer votes on the council are required to raise taxes and spike employee pensions. The fewer representatives, the less accountable they and their employees are to the citizens.

Anaheim’s city council is not going to want to implement any changes. It will likely continue to put the matter off as long as it can because the reform needed is a direct threat to the current council’s power. The longer they are able to delay a change, the more they can maintain the status quo.

However, the citizens of Anaheim need to be vigilant. They need to keep pushing for more representation and single member districts. The thoughts and ideas of the representatives should be as broad and diverse as the people they represent. More representatives would achieve that goal as well as level the political playing field and lead to less violence and more accountability.

(Editor’s note: This is a revision of an earlier piece on the same subject.)

(Michael Warnken is an expert in the field of political representation and American electoral history.)

By Michael Warnken

Upon recent news of the state’s $16 billion dollar budget deficit, the legislature began making deep cuts in numerous programs. One of the most devastating cuts of $544 million was to the state judiciary. On June 13, there was a large rally in front of the Capital building made up mostly by Trial Judges, the Chief Public Defender and the District Attorney of Sacramento County as well as the current president of the state bar. All of them were protesting these cuts, the effects of which will absolutely cripple California’s third branch of government.

Since judicial salaries are protected against pay cuts by the Constitution, most cuts are directed at court support staff. These staff cuts directly affect the judiciary’s ability to handle its already burgeoning caseload.  Right now, California cases which already take a long time to resolve, will now take even longer to resolve and disputes may linger for years.  This is a problem that will affect all of us and a solution to this problem needs to be found and implemented.

AN OVERVIEW OF THE JUDICIARY

California’s judicial system as a whole is expensive and inefficient. Our judiciary boasts over 2,000 members, but when compared to other states, it has fewer judges per capita and needs more judicial officials to handle its caseload. California also has the highest paid judges in the nation. Trial judges earn $178,000 per year; which is almost as much as Federal Judges. This figure does not include the cost of their hefty retirements. To put this in perspective, the chief Justice of New Hampshire’s Supreme Court makes $145,000 per year.

Trial judges are supported by a smaller number of Court Commissioners. The number of Commissioners varies by county and they are paid slightly less than Judges at about $160,000 per year to hear cases. Commissioners handle many lesser judicial responsibilities including minor traffic matters, criminal misdemeanors/infractions as well as some civil and family law cases. However, Commissioners do not save the system much in the end.

The Administration of the Courts (The AOC), another branch of the judiciary located in San Francisco, handles the executive functions of the court system. This includes updating Court facilities and handling non-judicial functions. It was recently audited by order of the Chief Justice. The finding of that audit was that 1 in 3 employees in the AOC made in excess of $100,000 per year. This is quite an expense to the taxpayers for non-judicial duties.

JUSTICIAL TRANSITION

In the early days of the State, the entire government was small. According to the census, in 1850, 92,000 people lived in the entire state, which was divided into just 10 counties at the time. There were also just 12 State Judges to manage the major court matters of California. They were apportioned into 9 judicial districts each with one Superior Court Judge. The Supreme Court, the only court of appeal in the state, had just 3 members.

The majority of the judicial work done in California was by a small multitude of Justices of the Peace (JOP’s) scattered across the state. No number seems to exist in print, but their apportionment as per statute was that there would be two for every inhabited township (an area six miles by six miles square). They only handled misdemeanors and minor civil disputes, often amounting to a few dollars. If an issue brought before them was greater than their jurisdictional limits, the JOP’s had the power to order the issue held over to a Superior Court Judge.

JOP’s were paid per duty performed and were not salaried. They generally received a very minor remuneration and were not a financial burden to their locality. JOP’s were easy to get to, well known to their small communities and were generally within walking distance for everyone. They amounted to quick, fair justice. Citizens in the community would observe the proceeding and, in this process, they learned about the law. If a community felt a Justice of the Peace was unfair, they would vote him out of office!

Though it is not clear why, JOP’s were done away with in California around 1960 after being in place for over 100 years; they were replaced with municipal judges. The professionalization of the California judiciary began.

With this change, the cost of the Courts went up, but the caseload capacity of the judges did not. The existing JOP’s were promoted and received pay raises for their new positions. Taxes had to go up to pay for these new supposedly higher ranking judges. Legal training for the municipal judges became a prerequisite as higher standards for becoming a judge were implemented.

In 1997, a similar event occurred. Municipal judges were done away with and all judges became full rank Superior Court Judges, again with higher salaries. Many decent sized cities no longer had local judges and many people had to travel some distance to have their casees heard. People who were arrested no longer received prompt, probable-cause hearings, as they should, before they are locked up. And other hearings requiring prompt attention became more difficult to obtain.

THE CURRENT REALITY

Most states in America still have Justices of the Peace. They are employed in big states like Texas and New York as well as small states such as Vermont and Louisiana. Different states grant them different powers. Salaries for such an office vary widely as well, but for the most part, it’s very little and often amounts to pay for each duty performed rather than fixed salaries. Such duties include taking oaths, notarizing paperwork and presiding over weddings as well as hearing minor civil and criminal matters.

Since having Commissioners doesn’t save us much, they should be promoted and consolidated into full Judges.

Then, the office of Justices of the Peace should be reintroduced. The salaries for JOP’s should be set low and not raised as it was in the past. In California, there are many retired persons with legal training who could hold such offices. City council chambers in almost every community that tend to be used only one day a week could facilitate hearings.

Citizens should not be forced to travel far off distances to deal with minor infractions as they are today and no traffic ticket should be decided by anyone costing the taxpayers $160,000 or more per year — the silly reality of how our judiciary works today.

Establishing a training program for JOP’s would be simple, as California could implement any one of many programs used in the states that still have them. We could even tailor a program to California from more than one state. JOP’s could relieve the Courts of all small claim and other minor trial matters. It is possible that they could even be allowed to hold jury trials as well. The Justices could soon chip away at the current case overload.

California is in dire fiscal straights and cuts have to be made. The Judiciary and every other department facing cuts can march in front of the capitol and protest as much as they want, but the reality is, the state is in belt tightening mode. Dispute resolution is an absolute essential aspect of a functioning democracy; it is not something we can or should give up. This practical, workable solution should be considered by the legislature and acted on. The citizens’ access to their courts should not suffer due to the fiscal ineptness of our government.

MARCH 27, 2012

By MICHAEL WARNKEN

I have been casually watching the events in San Francisco involving Sheriff Ross Mirkarimi and the county Board of Supervisors. The sheriff recently plead guilty to misdemeanor domestic violence in an incident involving his wife on New Years Eve.

This very public incident has lead the mayor and city counsel to invoke a rarely used clause in San Francisco’s charter, enacted in 1995 by the voters, to suspend the Sheriff from his position. The Code in the City Charter is enacted as Section 15.105 (e) and allows government agents to be removed for misconduct in official positions.:

“Official misconduct means any wrongful behavior by a public officer in relation to the duties of his or her office, willful in its character, including any failure, refusal or neglect of an officer to perform any duty enjoined on him or her by law, or conduct that falls below the standard of decency, good faith and right action impliedly required of all public officers and including any violation of a specific conflict of interest or governmental ethics law. When any City law provides that a violation of the law constitutes or is deemed official misconduct, the conduct is covered by this definition and may subject the person to discipline and/or removal from office.”

What caught my attention over this is not so much the incident itself or the actions of the Sheriff leading up to it.  It is the fact that this is happening at all.  Most citizens are at least aware of the theory that America’’s system of government works with checks and balances. That theory is a wonderful one, except that in this day and age, it almost never happens.

This is an instance in which it seems to be happening.

On a daily basis, on CalWatchDog.com and other publications that I follow, I read about rampant misconduct in government. I also get information from friends dealing with various problems of corruption. They are trying (often in vain) to do something to set things right. Most of these issues are never dealt with, or dealt with in a cursory manner at best. Generally those who have been caught pilfering the community treasury, or just simply breaking their public trust, end up bowing out. After the news on that issue becomes stale, they move on to the next place and start anew. There is very little redress for those seeking it.

I have spent a tremendous amount time researching this area of the law as it angers me as well. It is disappointing that issues such as basic oversight and systematic accountability have become so arcane. I enjoy an opportunity such as this to dust off my knowledge in this area, since I am certain it is no longer taught in high school civics, much less is acted upon in real life.

Taxation With Representation

Our American founders revolted against the system England had put in place, which enacted taxes upon us without our having any say in the matter. After the Revolution, “The Deal” that we ended up with was that we would pay taxes so long as we had the ability to elect the representatives who voted on those taxes. Once we elected our representatives, even after we paid our taxes, they had to hear the petitions for redress that we sent to those elected.

Redress of grievances is the key part of the petition process with the representation deal. We have representatives so that we can petition them when we are harmed in some way, particularly when it involves the expenditures of public monies. Without this, we aren’t any better off than we were  when England governed us.

One legal scholar, Sai Prakash, summed up the removal process with great simplicity. Prakash is a Law Professor who used to clerk for a Justice on the U.S. Supreme Court, and I consider his thoughts on the matter proper. He noted that all civil officers in government, regardless of their branch, hold their offices with the tenure of “good behavior”, and in the event that their actions came into question, we merely needed to hold a hearing into those actions. The process of investigating government employees should be done by the most proximate legislative entities. For most, that would be a City Council, a County Board of Supervisors or the California Legislature, depending on the actor in question.

Legislative Body

The legislative body was important in the political process because it had the duty of inquiry. Woodrow Wilson spoke of it as the main duty of a legislative body. He said:

“It is the proper duty of a representative body to look diligently into every affair of government and to talk much about what it sees. . . and use every means of acquainting itself with the acts and the disposition of the administrative agents of the government.””

And if a representative government failed to do this, then:

“. . .  the country must be helpless to learn how it is being served; . . . The argument is not only that discussed and interrogated administration is the only pure and efficient administration, but, more than that, that the only really self-governing people is that people which discusses and interrogates its administration.””

Petition

In Prakash’s theory (for which he had many examples that indeed played out in American and English history), a party harmed by a state actor needed only to present a petition listing the harms that actor had caused them. The legislative body would then set a hearing and the evidence would need to be examined. The actor who was accused of the misconduct had the right to due process and a fair trial. He had the right to see evidence and the persons making the claim against him. However, the legislative body had the right to hold a trial, and if they found that the actor had breached the tenure of good behavior, that person could then be removed from office.

This process can be applied to anyone holding any office of trust, whether collecting a paycheck from government or not. It also can be used even if there is no provision for it in the local charter and may not be used only if there is a specific constitutional limitation against it or a specific process that must be used. In some instances, such a process may be open to judicial review as the current instance looks to be headed.

This is more or less what is happening in San Francisco. The local charter gives the citizens a process to look into the actions of one of the government agents (the sheriff) and the mayor has initiated the process. To be sure, it is an uncomfortable process, and it can easily amount to public embarrassment and even the loss of a highly visible and cherished office.

However, that is the system of checks and balances that our founders set up for us. And if, from time to time, we do not use this system, then we are simply left cataloging the abuses we endure and are forced to pay for. I can only hope that this sparks more such actions against more public officials!

By MICHAEL WARNKEN

This issue of Splitting California into two or more states has come into the greater public eye once again. This matter is dredged up every few years by a different group of Californians who are not happy with current arrangements. A recent proponent was  Riverside County Supervisor Jeff Stone.

However often the issue of splitting the state has been brought up, the actual splitting has never occurred. This leaves the question for many of us: How does a state get split? The further question that needs to be asked and answered is: What needs to occur in order to actually cause a State to split?

The process of splitting a state is codified in Article IV Section 3 of the U.S. Constitution:

“New States may be admitted by the Congress into this Union; but no new States shall be formed or erected within the Jurisdiction of any other State; nor any State be formed by the Junction of two or more States, or parts of States, without the Consent of the Legislatures of the States concerned as well as of the Congress.”

The state splitting process generally begins when a state’s legislature first votes to split the state. Once the measure passes both chambers of that state, it is submitted to Congress. Once there, the matter is discussed. If both chambers of Congress vote to pass it, the state can then be split.

There seem to be two options on how a state can split. In the first instance, the state decides how it’s going to be split before sending the proposal to Congress.

In the other instance, the state does not decide how to split itself before the bill is sent to Congress. Congress generally establishes a partition committee once the bill to split a state has been affirmed by Congress.

Partition committees are quite important to the splitting process. When a vote to split a state occurs, there are many details that must be worked out. These details include what resources are to be partitioned to which new state, how any existing state debt will be distributed between the two new states and how the state Constitution will be addressed or changed by the new states. A key component of a partition committee can include how to draw the lines and how many new states may be created. So, proponents may be a bit ahead of themselves by drawing such maps.

What If Congress Chooses Not to Act? 

What happens if the state itself votes to split, but Congress either fails to take the matter up, or chooses not to? That was the case in 1864, when Californians passed a ballot initiative to split California and the Legislature voted and passed it as well. Unfortunately, Congress chose not to discuss it and the matter was left undecided. This poses a problem, but needs to be examined.

If an existing state is too small to divide and yet tries to split, it would be argued that Congress has a material interest in acting as a check to stop the process. If, for instance, Vermont tried to split itself into two or more parts, many would see that the resulting new states would be too small in both size and population and should not have the benefit of another U.S. House member, much less two more U.S. Senators.

However, considering the sheer size of California and its population, not to mention the size of our economy, some have suggested that California is a de facto country of its own. One would think that any attempt for California to split into two or more states would not run into the same problem.

In my opinion, Congress should vote to support California splitting. If Congress lets the issue die, as it did in the 1864, then we have a real dilemma.

California could have other options if Congress chooses not to act. Article IV, Section 4 of the U.S. Constitution guarantees:

“The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government….”

If Congress chooses not to pass such a split of California, that provision could be invoked in the the federal courts if manageable standards could be advanced. (I believe they could be.) Though it is not clear if such a process would be successful, it could help to build the political pressure needed to force a split.

The only other remedy to split a state is would be a direct appeal by California to the other states to call a Constitutional Convention, following Article V of the Constitution. The Convention would change the process of splitting a state. This would a very long and difficult procedure.

History of State Splitting in America 

The very first state to split was New Jersey. For a brief time there was a West and East Jersey. This happened in 1676, but the experiment was short lived and the two parts were reunited in 1702 as modern day New Jersey. At that time, New Jersey was still a colony and it is not clear what caused the splitting or reunification to occur.

The next split to take place was Vermont. It was formed from the Northeast corner of New York state, in an area for which there were land claims by New York, New Hampshire and even Massachusetts. In 1777, the locals living in the area of this cross-claimed land themselves took title (it seems unilaterally) and formed “The Republic of New Connecticut,” declaring it an Independent country. Six months later, at a constitutional convention, 72 delegates adopted the name of Vermont.

In 1791, Vermont became the 14th state. It was Vermont’s circumstances that led to the creation of Article IV Section 3 at the Constitutional Convention held in Philadelphia by the Founding Fathers. They realized that there may be a need for states to split or even be able to combine two or more states into one. This is what led to the constitutional codification.

Maine became the first post-colonial state to split. It was a territory that the French and English fought many wars over until it was finally claimed by Massachusetts in the mid-18th Century. Maine is not physically attached to Massachusetts and was called “an exurb.” Until Maine was formed as its own state, representatives were sent to the Massachusetts statehouse to represent the citizens in the Maine territory.

In 1807,  disputes over land grants in Maine led to a vote in the Massachusetts Assembly to split the state. That vote failed.

However, the first step to actually split did occur. There is one key reason why. Massachusetts was well represented in the lower chamber of its legislature in those days. In fact, there was about one representative for about every “150 ratable polls” (one representative for every 150 white men over age 21) in its lower chamber, far more than any other state at the time or even now. In 1812, there were representatives in the Massachusetts lower chamber. It is likely the high level of representation led to the state considering the split, even though the split was voted down.

During the War of 1812, the British captured and took control of Maine, but then it was released back to Massachusetts after the war. So, for a time, representatives were no longer sent to the Massachusetts legislature. Massachusetts finally voted to allow Maine to become a State in 1820 as part of the Missouri compromise to keep the balance of slave states and free states.

Virginia is the greatest splitter of all. It began as one of the first and oldest colonies and then grew to the point in which encompassed the area of West Virginia and Kentucky. It was these latter areas that separated from Virginia to form their own states that we recognize today.

Kentucky split from Virginia and became the 15th State in November of 1861 as part of the secession movement. Kentucky citizens formed a convention and voted to secede from Virginia. Kentucky does not appear to have invoked Article IV, Section 3 in its formation. It seems that this was done summarily after Virginia seceded from the Union.

West Virginia followed a similar pattern to Kentucky. Since Virginia became a Confederate state, the people residing in the northwestern portion of Virginia formed a convention and voted to break off from the greater state, like Kentucky not asking Virginia’s consent to split. West Virgnia simply applied to the U.S. Congress to become a state. The application was granted.

It appears that Maine is the only state to have split under Article IV Section 3.

How Could California Split? 

There are many people who are not satisfied with the California’s current boundaries and others who believe that splitting the state would solve many internal problems. This is particularly true of people who feel they have no access to the Legislature or are simply being controlled by factions of the state who do not share their interests.

However, with the number of attempts that have been made, it is clear that a good deal more political will needs to be developed to advance a breakup.

The key question: What would need to happen in order to push a successful split forward? The answer lies with an issue more obscure than the intricacies of state splitting itself. The main problem is there needs to be an increase in the number of representatives in the California Legislature because the will of the people is not being expressed by this small Legislature.

Currently, California has 80 Assembly members and 40 Senators representing 28 million people.

In 1862, those same 80 Assembly members and 40 Senators represented just more than 400,000 people statewide. That is, each Assembly member in 1862 represented 5,000 people; and each state senator, 10,000.

James Madison noted in the Federalist Papers that each representative in a state legislature should represent about 3,000 people. He got that idea by looking to democracies throughout history that had successful representative government. So originally, California was not far from Madison’s ideal.

Representation in California has degraded to the extent that now each Assembly member has close to 500,000 constituents and each state senator has close to 1 million. It is almost impossible for the average person to ever even meet their representative, much less feel that their concerns are heard, understood and acted upon. The more people represented by each legislator, the more power and less accountability each has. This alone is a powerful incentive to maintain the current system. It also serves to defeat all attempts to split California.

If California ever increases the number of state representatives enough to correct the people’s incredibly poor access, the Legislature would likely take splitting the state. However, until then, we are simply left to drawing maps.

Michael Warnken is president of Project Commonwealth, at Projectcommonwealth.com.

By STEVEN GREENHUT

A former Republican presidential candidate and long-time political reformer said Wednesday that he plans on leading a statewide initiative effort designed to expand the number of politicians in the state by reducing the size of political districts for Assembly and state Senate candidates. The idea is modeled roughly on the New Hampshire House of Representatives, which has the nation’s highest 400 members — each which enjoy the modest salary of $200 for every two years.

The goal, advanced by John Cox, a Chicago-area activist and businessman who now resides a good bit of the year in San Diego County, is to create more of a citizen legislature. “Everyone can see the money chase is corrupting the political process,” he told me Wednesday at the Hyatt in Sacramento, after he met with legislators in the Capitol. He doesn’t believe that politicians are necessarily corrupt, “but the system is corrupting.”

I wrote about the idea of expanding representation in this column in April after meeting with representation activist Michael Warnken at the Libertarian Party convention in Lake Tahoe, where I was keynote speaker. Warnken joined us at the Hyatt Wednesday. Consider these facts (based on Warnken’s data) that I reported: “There’s one representative for every 29,151 Iowans (as of 2008 data) and one Assembly member for every 459,458 Californians (now 483,000). There’s an elected representative in New Hampshire’s house for every 3,290 of that state’s residents, which is the best level of representation in the nation.”

California has an enormous representation problem, which is why the Libertarian Party approved a resolution calling for representation reform. But this idea should appeal to a wide number of voters whatever their political persuasion. Unlike many other reforms, such as the ones advocated by moderate business groups such as the Bay Area Council (constitutional convention, open primary, majority-vote budgets, etc.), this is not designed to get a specific political outcome. The council, for instance, tried rigging the election rules so that Californians would elect more “moderates” from both major parties.

Rather, Cox’s idea is designed to make it easier for average Californians, whatever their political persuasion, to know their elected officials and influence public policy. California’s districts are so enormous that there is little chance for average voters to know their representative or to have any influence. Only professionals, who can afford campaigns financed by special interests (unions, corporations, environmentalists) have a chance to run for office. Where I used to live in Los Angeles County, there were approximately 2 million residents for every county supervisor. How representative is that? Such a situation enhances the influence of special interests and turns money into the most important political factor. The coming initiative only deals with the state Legislature, but Cox believes the concept can be expanded to the county board and other elected bodies.

In a true citizen legislature, money doesn’t matter very much. Regular people with regular jobs can run for office. People will know the legislator. It’s easy to throw the bum out. Local concerns win the day. It’s a brilliant way to reform the system and it will create a more responsive Legislature. It offers no threat to the state’s dominant Democrats given that there are more Democratic voters than Republican ones. But it does offer a specific threat to special interests, and unions in particular, which will be sure to campaign against Cox’s initiative, if he raises the funds to get it on the ballot. He is looking toward next November.

Cox said the initiative language, still being discussed, would probably be something like this: The size of districts shall be no more than 10,000 people for the Assembly and 20,000 for the Senate. He foresees a very large Legislature and an executive council for each body similar in size to the current Legislature that would do much of the day-to-day work. A key point is that the legislators would not get full-time staff and big budgets as they do now. Yes, there would be more politicians, but there would be a smaller class of professional politicians.

The thinking is that regular people, who work in regular jobs, would then dominate Sacramento. These citizen legislators would better understand the needs of their constituents and would be less likely to serve as the cat’s paw for unions and big corporations. Cox notes that about 2,000 bills are introduced in each legislative session. He believes that number would go down even as the number of representatives would go up because the newly elected legislators would be there for the right reasons.

In the current system, he said, voting percentages are declining because people know there is no way they can affect the political process. After his reform, “people will come out of the woodwork to participate.” His argument to the Left: Under this system, the rich won’t have all the power. To the Right: Broader representation will lead to less social engineering and better fiscal management. To everyone: All of a sudden, money won’t be as big of a factor and lobbyists won’t be able to have the control they now have.

Perhaps this is a bit idealistic, but the Founding Fathers would be aghast at how unrepresentative our supposedly representative democracy has become, especially in California. Here’s an initiative that might get mocked at first, but upon closer examination it makes an inordinate amount of sense and should appeal to people from every political persuasion who are seriously interested in reform. Stay tuned for more on this one and for the resurgent career of John Cox.