A Citizens' Assembly in the Golden State

By Jan Frel, AlterNet. Posted February 27, 2006.

What does real democracy look like? Certainly not like the political system in California, where 80 Assembly members in the lower house of the Legislature purportedly represent the interests of 36 million citizens -- a ludicrous proposition on its face. For decades in the Golden State, political reform activists have found themselves stymied by the entire political establishment in Sacramento resisting institutional changes to the hilt.

Now, Joe Canciamilla, D-Pittsburg, and Keith Richman, R-Northridge, two Assembly members with a close political relationship and a history of offering resolutions to reform California politics, are floating a new, fairly radical experiment in direct democracy. They propose addressing electoral reform through a Citizens' Assembly, a concept largely modeled on a novel democratic experiment in the Canadian province of British Columbia.

In what started as a 2001 campaign promise by British Columbia premier candidate Gordon Campell that was established by a unanimous vote by the province's Legislature in 2003, academics picked a Citizens' Assembly composed of two members from each of British Columbia's 79 electoral districts using a random selection process from a list of almost 16,000 names. Two representatives of British Columbia's native residents joined, bringing the total of voting members to 160, and Jack Blaney -- a former university president and veteran negotiator -- was named chair, charged with organizing and overseeing the project.

The Assembly spent eight months in a learning phase starting in January 2004, meeting on weekends to discuss ideas with elections experts and to hold public hearings. The members then debated various proposals over the next few months, and submitted their final proposal to establish proportional representation in the Legislature. The Assembly's proposal was placed as a measure on a referendum ballot in May 2005, requiring 60 percent of the vote for passage.

Blaney, who chaired the Citizens' Assembly through 11 months of deliberation and its final vote in 2004, was exultant after the 146-7 vote that the British Columbia Citizens' Assembly made in favor of throwing out the province's 19th-century electoral system. The standing winner-take-all format was rejected, and in its place the Assembly proposed a system of proportional representation. "This really is power to the people," Blaney said at the time.

In the final tally, the proposal came short in the public's referendum vote, receiving 58 percent. But voters in British Columbia will have the chance to vote for the Citizens' Assembly proposal again this year. The idea of imitating a Citizens' Assembly is under consideration in the province of Ontario, and talk has spread abroad to Australia, the United Kingdom and Taiwan.

Although Canciamilla and Richman's stands on policy issues are quite moderate, the bipartisan pair is widely viewed by colleagues as outsiders for their focus on political reform. The reception in Sacramento to their Citizens' Assembly idea was chilly to say the least.

When Richman and Canciamilla made their announcement in late January, a spokesman for Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez hid behind the democratic mechanism of voting to dismiss their proposal, telling the press that, "If voters want reform, they can make that decision at the ballot box every November. There is no need to spend millions of dollars to create another government entity with no proven track record."

Canciamilla said the spokesman's statement revealed just how ineffective the mechanism of voting has been for California citizens who want to fight back against the political establishment in Sacramento.

Canciamilla and Richman have been aided by academics at California universities and voting experts like David Lesher and Steven Hill of the New America Foundation. The idea of a Citizen's Assembly was recently the topic of a three-city speaking series hosted by the Commonwealth Club that featured Gordon Gibson, the architect of the British Columbia model.

The Citizens' Assembly in California

How exactly would a Citizens' Assembly work?

First, the proposal for a Citizens' Assembly would be placed on the ballot and offered to the voters of California. If a majority approves the proposal, then a selection task force of six California university academics would pick one man and one woman from each of California's 80 Assembly districts. Ten additional members would be selected to ensure greater diversity on the Assembly panel. Members who agree to serve on the Assembly would be offered a small stipend. The task force would also pick a nonvoting chair of the Assembly to run and organize the process.

Politicians who fear their constituents might attempt to radically restructure the state have little to worry about. "They'd have a narrow mandate," Richman says, limited to electoral reform.

Jan Frel is an AlterNet staff writer.

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