California Politicos Weigh Government Overhaul

May 19, 2009 -- The votes have not yet been counted in Tuesday's special election, but five of the six measures intended to pull California out of its budget catastrophe are expected to go down in defeat today.

California's persistently large deficit -- which is currently estimated to be at least $15.4 billion -- and voter anger at Sacramento, has led more and more of the state's leaders to think that some kind of fundamental reform is needed of the state's budget process.

Among them is Bob Hertzberg, a former Democratic speaker of the California State Assembly who heads a reform group that calls itself California Forward. The group has laid out a series of steps it said would be a major government overhaul.

"We're not just rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic," Hertzberg told ABC News. "Frustration is higher than it's ever been. California Forward is putting together a package of reforms. We're building support inside and outside of Sacramento. And our goal is to get it on the November 2010 ballot."

California politicos are weighing wholesale reform, according to Hertzberg, because Sacramento is facing a crisis of governance which extends beyond its current budget shortfall, a deficit which is expected to grow to $21.3 billion if Tuesday's ballot measures are rejected.

California Forward is seeking a series of reforms. Possibilities for the final package include:

"If you look at the ying and the yang, and the checks and the balances of this stuff, there is some architecture here that is the basis for a deal," Hertzberg told the Sacramento Press Club recently.

California is one of 14 states to require initiatives to focus on no more than one subject. To get around this "single-subject rule," Hertzberg is selling his package to the state's legislative leaders as a constitutional revision.

The downside of this approach is that it must first receive a two-thirds vote of the legislature.

The upside, in Hertzberg's view, is that a constitutional revision can go to the voters as one package rather than as a series of individual ballot measures as is the case in Tuesday's special election.