A few days after the 2004 election, Michael Kinsley, then
opinion editor for the LA Times, had an interesting idea: a new
political TV talk show, sort of an anti-
”
Crossfire
”
(since canceled). It would be called
”
Cease Fire.
”
Rather than goading people of divergent views even further
apart, guests would be required to find common ground.
Kinsley says CNN wasn’t interested
– not dramatic enough, perhaps. But I think TV is missing an
opportunity here. How much fun would it be to see Nancy Pelosi and
John Boehner – or even Tom DeLay – forced to agree on something and
find a solution on air. Can’t you just see the set jaws, tight
smiles, and reluctant handshakes?
A few days after the 2004 election, Michael Kinsley, then opinion editor for the LA Times, had an interesting idea: a new political TV talk show, sort of an anti-“Crossfire” (since canceled). It would be called “Cease Fire.” Rather than goading people of divergent views even further apart, guests would be required to find common ground.
Kinsley says CNN wasn’t interested – not dramatic enough, perhaps. But I think TV is missing an opportunity here. How much fun would it be to see Nancy Pelosi and John Boehner – or even Tom DeLay – forced to agree on something and find a solution on air. Can’t you just see the set jaws, tight smiles, and reluctant handshakes?
That’s not a dynamic politicians are used to. The system lends itself to set-piece skirmishes, where advantage, not compromise – certainly not the public good – is the goal.
Hoping to upset that apple cart, two members of the California Assembly, Joe Canciamilla (D-Martinez) and Keith Richman (R-Northridge) are proposing a state constitutional amendment, ACA 28, that would create a citizens’ political reform commission empowered to rewrite the rules of the game.
A “Citizens Assembly” composed of 170 members selected more or less at random from around the state would take a year to come up with ideas that could completely revamp California’s electoral system. With the exception of judges’ terms, they would be free to consider any ideas for reform, such as independent redistricting, open primaries, public financing of campaigns, expansion of the legislature, and even proportional representation. The result of their deliberations would then be put to a statewide referendum. Hearings on the bill are scheduled for this week. The effort is patterned after a citizen reform commission that came very close to rewriting the rules a few years ago in British Columbia.
With no personal political agendas at stake, apart from whatever philosophy each participant might naturally bring to the table, such a group might well arrive at interesting and with luck viable solutions previously written off by contentious politicians and pundits.
Since the failure in November of Proposition 77, the redistricting proposal, promoters of the Citizens Assembly idea have spoken of it in reverential terms. It’s hardly worthy of that, given the many ways in which it could fail.
Ten years ago, the Minneapolis Star Tribune and a local TV station decided to co-host an experiment. They invited 400 average citizens from around Minnesota to a weekend-long “Citizens’ Issue Conference” in a swank Twin Cities hotel. Since politicians and the press had failed at determining what “the people” really wanted, the conference would cut out the middleman. Conferees would be guided by “experts” on individual topics, but they would otherwise be on their own.
Only half the people invited showed up, and the conference soon dissolved into a muddle of crossed signals and mixed messages. For example, in a Minnesota Poll conducted by the Star Tribune before the conference, crime was identified as the number one concern of state voters. Yet by the time conference participants got done ranking issues, crime was chosen as a discussion topic in only one of 80 sessions. Meanwhile, perennial topics like abortion, the environment, human rights, gun control, and campaign finance reform got no hearings at all.
The California Citizens Assembly will be very different. It will have the advantage of time (a year instead of a weekend), a more narrow focus (on political reform), a real budget ($20 million), and compensation for participants. Still, we should not be Pollyannas. Citizens can just as easily be transformed, Animal Farm-like, into politicians themselves.
But if the Citizens Assembly emphasizes consensus, on the model of the 9/11 Commission, its most profound impact could be the creation of a model of cooperation, a la “Cease Fire,” that politicians would ignore at their peril. Their recommendations might be imbued with a sincerity and credibility that a committee room in Sacramento couldn’t duplicate.
Some Sacramento pols are trying to head this effort off by preparing to roll out SCA 3, the latest state constitutional effort to create an independent commission to draw Senate, Assembly, U.S. House and Board of Equalization districts. If the two proposals appear on the ballot together, it will be interesting to see which prevails. In 1978, politicians put the Propositions 8 property tax reform initiative on the ballot to try to head off the citizen reform of Proposition 13. And we all know how that turned out.
