Monumental Show Will Hit the Road : Important but unsung panel will hold public forums on Constitution reform across state

The subject of their labors is hardly the stuff of headlines. The California Constitution, magisterial though it is, simply does not generate the fevered public reaction of, say, “three strikes and you’re out” or affirmative action. Yet the 23 men and women who have been meeting across the state over the last 11 months are considering no less than the very fundamentals of this state’s government.

The Constitution Revision Commission was created by legislation passed in 1993. Its purpose is to recommend changes in the state’s 115-year-old governing document--changes that will reduce confusion and verbiage and effect a rethinking of both governmental organization and the key state-local relationship. Should anyone doubt the need for such revision, recall the gnarled budget deadlocks of recent years, this year’s bloody battle over the Assembly speakership, the expensive, divisive and clumsy initiative process and the fact that the current Constitution descends to a level of mind-boggling specificity. (For example, by way of a 1990 initiative it bans the use of gill nets in fishing off California.)

Navigating the turbulent political and legal waters to an improved framework for California government will not be easy. Nearly a year into the process, goodwill and determination still seem to prevail among commission members but there are few solid proposals yet on the shape of the new Constitution. Time is growing uncomfortably short; the commission must present its preliminary recommendations to the Legislature in August. To take effect, they must be approved by a two-thirds vote of the Legislature and a majority of the voters.

Thus far, the commission has worked in relative isolation. It has heard from experts on various aspects of state government, including education finance, the initiative process and local government. Now--after talking among themselves about changes, still in only a general way--the panel members are taking the show on the road.

Beginning this week and continuing into June, the commission will hold community forums across the state to hear what Californians think about their Constitution: what works, what doesn’t, what should be changed and how. The meetings will be open to the public, and this week’s forums will be in Fremont, San Diego and Los Altos; Los Angeles residents will get their chance in late May.

The commission needs to hear from all of us. No less than the future governance of the state is at stake.