Thomas Elias | Sonoma Index-Tribune | Mar. 18, 2010
The notion of a California constitutional convention, perhaps better thought of as a Pandora's box on steroids, is dead at least for this year and most likely for many years to come. Good thing, too.
Good because there are other means afoot for fixing California government and now Californians can get on with real reforms that don't involve buying pigs in pokes, as a constitutional convention necessarily would. This supposed method of fixing all California's governmental problems at one fell swoop was so ill-conceived that no one had any clue what it might produce. Sponsors claimed they could prevent a convention from altering the Proposition 13 property tax limits or changing abortion laws, recognition of domestic partnerships or any other social issues. In fact, they said they could set this up so delegates could do little but decide whether or not future budgets would require a two-thirds vote, whether the state would have a lieutenant governor and whether new rules should restrict what ballot initiatives contain and how they reach the ballot.