Posted on 10/23/2009 8:02:15 AM PDT by SmithL
Widespread public disdain for a dysfunctional Legislature – just 13 percent of voters approved of the job it was doing in a recent poll – has spawned a rhetorical game in political, academic and media circles that goes something like this:
"Everything would be OK if only they would just (fill in the blank)."
Of course, the phrases offered to fill in that blank vary widely, depending on the player's ideological or cultural orientation. And that's why reforming the Capitol in any meaningful way is, at least so far, as elusive as balancing the horribly imbalanced state budget.
Thursday's joint hearing of two legislative committees appointed to explore "improving state government" was an official version of the game, with witnesses and committee members offering nostrums for raising politicians' reputations above those of mortgage bankers.
The most popular prescription, judging by how many times it was mentioned, was loosening up the state's 19-year-old legislative term limit law. Democrats, Republicans and academics took turns criticizing term limits – six years in the Assembly and eight years in the Senate.
Changing the limits would be the "single best thing you could do," opined Karl Kurtz of the National Conference of State Legislatures, to nods of bipartisan agreement.
"Term limits is just an awful thing," offered Republican Assemblyman Tom Berryhill of Modesto.
Even setting aside the reality that voters last year rejected modification of term limits, blaming them for the Legislature's wheel-spinning is revisionist history.
(Excerpt) Read more at sacbee.com ...
The ‘government’ elected by the ‘legal’ voters of California. Yes, it will fail. It will fail: economy, infrastucture, social support system, public support system, education system, and all of the other ‘systems’ precisely because the majority of the ‘legal’ voters of the state are socialist, leftist idiots.
“Loosening up term limit laws”===
Full employment act for Sacramento California members of the legislature.
There are a great number of people there who have long experience...they make everything a game of musical chairs.
They have failed and they know it.
Common sense and living within a budget was replaced by enviros who want to control everyone’s lives/ spending on every kind of ‘entitlement’ they could dream up, all of which have no sunset clauses/an atmosphere that they could steal tax money from specified funds(road repairs paid for by gasoline taxes) and somehow pay it back ‘in the future’ with even more taxes and fees.
Busniess climate in California is more than oppressive.
It is driving business and the employees out of the state.
Compound all of the above with the exhalted position that gays and lesbians and transgenders and cross dressers and ‘I’m not sure who I ams’ and ‘medical marijuana users and illegal intruders are shown, and it destroys any incentive for a straight hard working person to stay there.
Glad I left- won’t be going back.
“Loosening up term limit laws”===
Full employment act for Sacramento California members of the legislature.
There are a great number of people there who have long experience...they make everything a game of musical chairs.
They have failed and they know it.
Common sense and living within a budget was replaced by enviros who want to control everyone’s lives/ spending on every kind of ‘entitlement’ they could dream up, all of which have no sunset clauses/an atmosphere that they could steal tax money from specified funds(road repairs paid for by gasoline taxes) and somehow pay it back ‘in the future’ with even more taxes and fees.
Busniess climate in California is more than oppressive.
It is driving business and the employees out of the state.
Compound all of the above with the exhalted position that gays and lesbians and transgenders and cross dressers and ‘I’m not sure who I ams’ and ‘medical marijuana users and illegal intruders are shown, and it destroys any incentive for a straight hard working person to stay there.
Glad I left- won’t be going back.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.