Blockbuster Democracy

(originally posted at Fox & Hounds Daily)
This past weekend, more than 300 Californians - chosen at random, as part of an audience shaped to reflect the views and demographics of the state's registered voters - gathered at a Torrance hotel for California's first-ever Deliberative Poll.

We face historic challenges at a time when our state is increasingly thought to be ungovernable. Our outmoded system of government is crippling our ability to deliver basic services to the Californians who create our extraordinary productivity and prosperity – and undercutting our ability to plan and invest for the future. There are plenty of proposals for reform, but the public is often distrustful of those who offer them. It's time to change the process.

Why was Gov. Jerry Brown's state of the state speech so short? I don't know. Perhaps he didn't feel California deserved anything more. The address felt like a slap in the face. Republicans got the open hand for refusing to consider tax increases (or even give the public a chance to vote on tax increases).  Democrats and interest groups got hit for refusing to identify alternatives to cuts they oppose.

The most depressing moment of this week's gubernatorial debate came at the end, when Tom Brokaw asked the two candidates about whether California needed broader constitutional reform. Meg Whitman ducked the question and repeated platitudes. Jerry Brown said that he would work with the system he was given.

Together, that amounted to the same answer:

Why would Europeans be coming to California, seeking advice?

Well, a group of European activists and scholars are coming this week to learn as much as they can about our initiative process. Their goal? Learn what to do (and perhaps not to do) as they design a new initiative process of their own.

I've spent the past two days in Northern California playing host to a group of two dozen foreign scholars and practitioners. They are early arrivals to a free, public event that starts Friday night in San Francisco, the 2010 Global Forum on Modern Direct Democracy. (Full disclosure: I'm co-president of the event with a Swiss-Swede journalist named Bruno. Long story).

Conservatives say they like judges who follow the law and the original intent behind it. Liberals say they like judges who understand the world and have empathy.

I like judges who agree with me.

In that vein, there were two very agreeable court decisions on the initiative process in the past week.

But Joe Mathews of the New America Foundation in Los Angeles says that the new rules are far less groundbreaking than some have portrayed. The state, after all, already allows independent voters to request ballots to vote in Republican or Democratic primaries.

"It's a very minor thing," says Mathews, co-author of California Crackup: How Reform Broke the Golden State and How We Can Fix It.

"If this is a revolution," Mathews says, "the definition of revolution has been greatly reduced." ...

A couple weeks back, I moderated a couple different events comparing the initiative process in Switzerland (where it originated) and in California. What makes these two systems different? And why should it matter?

Here is the answer, in essence:

Joe Mathews has a good take on Whitman's victory, but it really does come down to her money. Same for Fiorina. Both dominated the messaging and TV airwaves ...