Panel Seeks Input on Revamping Government : Reform: Bipartisan commission is holding public forums--including one today in L.A.--on increasing government accountability and efficiency.

Whenever someone proposed tinkering with government in California in the past, a familiar outcry went up from a chorus of anti-reform skeptics: “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”

This time, however, there is considerable agreement that the state’s tangled mosaic of state and local government is indeed broke, or at least dysfunctional. The dilemma is how to fix it.

That task is now being tackled by the California Constitution Revision Commission, a 23-member state body that has toiled in virtual anonymity since May, 1993. It was created by legislation sponsored by state Sen. Lucy Killea, an independent from San Diego, and signed into law by Republican Gov. Pete Wilson.

The commission, after months of study of California’s creaky structure of government, and trying to narrow its focus to the state’s most urgent problems, has gone on the road to get input from the public.

Starting in late April and running well into June, the bipartisan commission, in conjunction with the League of Women Voters, is conducting more than 30 public forums throughout California.

The first session scheduled in Los Angeles will be held Downtown at the Central Library from 5:30 to 7:45 tonight. Another is scheduled for June 8 at the Irvine Ranch Water District Building in Orange County.

The goal of the forums is to “give the citizenry an opportunity to speak about ways to help make state and local government more accountable, more responsive and more efficient,” said organizers William Hauck, commission chairman, and Marlys Robertson, president of the League of Women Voters of California.

In the measure creating the commission, the Legislature directed it to:

* Examine the state budget process and the fiscal relationships of local, state and federal governments.

* Propose modification of state and local governments to increase accountability to the public.

* Review state and local duties and responsibilities to see if they are allocated to the proper levels of government.

* Seek ways to increase local government productivity and to reduce or eliminate duplication of services.

In effect, the commission has a virtual blank check to examine the entire state Constitution, which underwent its last systematic study and revision in the 1960s.

Proposals submitted to the commission have ranged from creation of a one-house legislature to reform of the initiative process.

One legislator even has proposed junking traditional state government, with an elected chief executive and a two-house Legislature, and replacing it with a European-style parliament.

Under this plan, by veteran state Sen. Alfred E. Alquist (D-San Jose), the leader of the majority party in a 120-member Senate would serve as governor so long as the party remained in power.

“Unless we make fundamental changes, California will continue to suffer from dysfunctional government,” Alquist said.

No one expects the commission to propose--or the people to accept--such radical change. In fact, achieving even a modicum of reform could become an excruciating process fraught with political conflict, according to those who have studied the process and the current political mood.

Conservative former Assemblyman Tom McClintock, representing the Golden State Center for Policy Studies, has told the commission:

“The Constitution Revision Commission is confronting a paradox as old as self-government. It is the riddle of reconciling our desire for vigor, accountability, expediency and action in the conduct of our affairs with the often-conflicting desire for caution, consensus and deliberation.”

For instance, a one-house legislature has support from many reformers as a means of eliminating the sort of gridlock that has gripped Sacramento in recent years. But McClintock argues that rivalries in the traditional two-house Legislature are built into the system for a purpose: to avoid the hasty adoption of flawed legislation.

Another problem facing the commission is the reluctance of any governmental body to relinquish power. In a study of its own, the League of California Cities acknowledged that a major problem in California is the complexity of local government, encompassing a matrix of more than 7,000 units including cities, counties and a variety of special districts.

“There are simultaneously too many hands on the throttle and none on the rudder,” the league’s committee on local government reform concluded.

The committee recognized the difficulty in achieving reform in the face of competing interests:

“Attrition of government organizations will be slow under the best of scenarios, and so we will not see a reduction to a level of 3,000 units, for example, in three years,” the report said. “But we can and must begin or our successors two or three decades from now will be dealing with 10,000 units and wondering why we were the victims of political paralysis.”

Among the proposals under commission consideration are a unicameral legislature, changes in the state sales tax, stricter fiscal accountability at the state level, and a system of local government finance that “will connect more with voters,” said Fred Silva, the commission’s executive secretary.

“It is pretty clear that the urban services delivery system is thoroughly broken,” Silva added.

The commission is scheduled to make a preliminary report to the Legislature and the governor in August. Hearings would be held this fall on the proposals.

A final proposal would go to the Legislature early next year with the goal of putting the revisions on the November, 1996, ballot. Any constitutional revision would have to win approval of a two-thirds majority in both the Senate and Assembly to make the ballot. A majority vote of the electorate would be required to ratify the plan.

The commission is closely divided along partisan lines. Ten members were appointed by Wilson and are predominantly Republicans. Ten were chosen by the Democratic leaders of the Assembly and Senate. The other three are ex-officio members: Malcolm Lucas, chief justice of California; state Finance Director Russell Gould, and Legislative Analyst Elizabeth Hill.

During the last constitutional overhaul, a series of amendments were presented to voters at a succession of elections. Most won approval. Even so, a considerable portion of the Constitution dates from the document adopted in 1879.

The major change, overwhelmingly adopted by voters in the fall of 1966, converted the Legislature from a part-time body to a full-time, year-around operation.

And now, 29 years later, proposals before the new Constitution Revision Commission include one to return the Legislature to part-time status.