(Picture Courtesy of Reuters)
Loading ...We have one of the most dysfunctional State Legislatures in the nation – small wonder then that “a recent poll shows a majority of residents supporting a part-time Legislature,” according to the Fresno Bee.
The Bee summed up the problem in an editorial, excerpted below:
Even a budget resolution won’t be enough to fix the damage that Assembly Speaker Karen Bass, Assembly Minority Leader Mike Villines, Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg and Senate Minority Leader Dave Cogdill have done to the state.
The Democrats and Republicans leading us in the Legislature are so fiercely partisan that they put party politics ahead of what’s good for Californians. The drawn-out budget mess is evidence of that problem, with most of the squabbling because of the need to cater to the special interests that control the Democrats and Republicans.
The latest Capitol Weekly/Probolsky Research Poll shows that 51% of those surveyed favor a part-time Legislature, with 36% opposed. The poll results aren’t surprising
The current full-time Legislature was instituted in 1966, and the aim was to have a professional lawmakers working on the state’s problems full time. It’s been a miserable failure, with legislators mostly working on political issues instead of devising 21st century solutions to California’s challenges.
Biographers of the Kennedy’s have written a quote attributed to Joseph Kennedy. It goes something like this. The era of making easy money in illegal businesses like bootlegging are over.The new business of easy money in the horizon is POLITICS.
From this the Kennedy political dynasty and other political dynasties were born.
It is no surprise that the legislature in 1966 was passed to make political offices in the legislature full time. It looks like it was a structured effort to rob the public.
Politics then attracted all the shady type characters that in the past were associated with organized crime.
Part time legislature may be the answer to discourage these characters from seeking office.
I hope we the public pursue and pass legislation to revert to prior 1966 part time legislature status.
I agree with Mr. Lomeli. It is going to take a popular uprising, such as a Howard Jarvis type Prop. 13 Initiative campaign, to make it happen though. Anyone out there that can launch such an effort?
How about we pay them a part time wage but require them to work full time.
Scratch that. The more they work, the more they damage our state. Maybe working part time will improve California’s situation. Addition by subtraction.
Another reason for a part-time legislature is to eliminate having a “political class” , ie, those people whose work is entirely in the political realm and thus who are disconnected with the real world of payrolls,budgets, profit and loss, savings and thrift. If your life’s work is being in the legislature, what you necessarily will do is spend money, not make it. If, however, you have a real job, and must earn a living, you will have a very different view of lavish spending schemes from someone whose success depends on spending more and more (on things called government programs). Half of the states have part-time legislatures, including Texas. Most are not dysfunctional. All of the states with full-time legislatures are in serious economic straights. The connection is apparent. Let’s go “part-time” to bring some fiscal sanity back to California.
In my opinion, It would be a really good thing if California returned to a part time state legislature. The fact that some of our legislators have absolutely too much time on their hands is evident by their hair-brained proposals. If we can’t have better state government, let’s have less of it. Where do I sign?
I agree vehemently with the part time proposal and echo Les’ comments. Here’s a stat for you from
http://www.legislature.ca.gov/bill_index.html
So far for the 2009-2010 session, our legislature (Senate and Assembly) has submitted a whopping 2,715 separate bills for consideration!!! Do we really need that many pieces of legislation!? Sounds like job security to me. Where do I sign the petition?!
Question: Where do you sign the petition?
Answer: Website: reformcal.com
Download the petition and mail it in.
could it get any worse if these guys were gone most of the year. My god its already bad enough so what do we have to loose by dropping a lot of dead weight and taxaholics
Somewhat related, I heard Maxine “No Justice” Waters on the Jesse Jackson radio program complaining and asking for an investigation, how unusual for her, about how the government in these hard economic times is ignoring our black and inner city citizens. That if they would just create public sector jobs and spend a portion of the budget that was equal to their portion of the population instead of to the white majority wall street tycoons that things would be be huckie doorie in these communities.
Obviously she been double dipping in the socialist kool-aid. Where does she think the seed money and most of the serious campaign funding for the President came from. Secondly who has been one of the biggest advocates for amnesty and open border. Ms. Waters if you want to see a source of the issues facing the black community you only have to look in the mirror.