{"id":596,"date":"2009-02-22T17:53:22","date_gmt":"2009-02-22T22:53:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/thickculture\/?p=596"},"modified":"2009-02-22T18:49:02","modified_gmt":"2009-02-22T23:49:02","slug":"california-and-cincinnatus","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/thickculture\/2009\/02\/22\/california-and-cincinnatus\/","title":{"rendered":"California and Cincinnatus"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a>Here in California, we’ve seemingly survived another “meltdown” over the state budget.\u00a0 What that means is that we get a temporary reprieve until the next budget cycle where the “crisis” will resume.\u00a0 What’s unique about California is that we repeat this budget dance every year with a new batch of dancers.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

In 1996, California voters passed Proposition 140,<\/a> a measure that restricted terms of service in the State Assembly to six years and service in the state senate to eight years.\u00a0 The measure was crafted in large part by Republicans seeking to weaken the power of the powerful, charismatic then Assembly Speaker Willie Brown.\u00a0 But the measure also captured the imagination of California voters.\u00a0 The lore of the citizen legislator has been with us since the founding.\u00a0 it harkens back to the story of Cincinattus<\/a> who was summoned to leave his plow and help Rome defeat the Aequians.\u00a0 Once Rome’s foes had been vanquished, he returned to the plow.<\/p>\n

In California, it is fashionable to beat up on the term limits idea.\u00a0 Indeed it has led to less experienced members, weaker committee structures, a “permanent campaign” mode and more lobbying influence, among other things.\u00a0\u00a0 This led California voters to approve a reform of legislative term limits in 2008 (Proposition 93) <\/a>that limited members to 12 total years of service in the California legislature.<\/p>\n

Despite term limits many problems, I’m concerned that we in California focus so much on rules because we don’t want to address the deeper issue of our state political culture.\u00a0 We can tinker all we want with the rules of the game in Sacramento, but the underlying problem is a belief that “they” in Sacramento are corrupt and that California’s renewal is contingent on throwing this particular set of “bums” out.\u00a0 Californians need to begin “owning” problems rather than passing them off as the result of politicians who are either “in the pocket of lobbyists” or “hate poor people.”\u00a0 My political scientist brethren might argue that partisan conflict is an inevitable and healthy part of a democratic system.\u00a0 But underlying that healthy conflict must be a fundamental sense of efficacy and investment in the system.\u00a0 The perception that the California citizen is somehow detached from the work of government is more corrosive than any term limit or proposition.<\/p>\n

The “citizen legislator” as a concept can work if the citizens see themselves as full members of the state rather than as victims of “corrupt politicians.”\u00a0 Now back to my plow.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Here in California, we’ve seemingly survived another “meltdown” over the state budget.\u00a0 What that means is that we get a temporary reprieve until the next budget cycle where the “crisis” will resume.\u00a0 What’s unique about California is that we repeat this budget dance every year with a new batch of dancers. In 1996, California voters […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":129,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[992,1079],"class_list":["post-596","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-california","tag-term-limits"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/thickculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/596","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/thickculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/thickculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/thickculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/129"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/thickculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=596"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/thickculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/596\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1162,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/thickculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/596\/revisions\/1162"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/thickculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=596"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/thickculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=596"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/thickculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=596"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}