Panel to Seek Reforms in Review of Constitution : Capitol: Amendments may be proposed to remedy chronic state government problems. Budget process is a prime candidate for study.

Just a week after California ended its latest fiscal stalemate--this one running a full month beyond the constitutional deadline for passing a budget--the California Constitution Revision Commission will begin to draft a plan that seeks to weed such institutional logjams from state government.

The 23-member body, created by legislation passed in 1993, will meet in Sacramento Thursday and Friday to start fashioning a preliminary report that is supposed to go to Gov. Pete Wilson and the Legislature by the end of the month.

The ultimate goal is to present a series of proposed constitutional amendments to be addressed by California voters at the 1996 general election. Any constitutional revisions must win two-thirds approval in the Senate and Assembly and be ratified by a majority of the electorate.

Public attention has focused on some of the grander schemes that have been presented to the commission during meetings and public hearings over the past year, such as junking the traditional two-house Legislature in California and replacing it with a unicameral body.

But commission members said the final plan is expected to focus on less ambitious and more pragmatic changes in the state Constitution, adopted in 1879 and partly revised in the 1960s.

There is considerable sentiment within the commission to require the state Legislature to pass a balanced budget, and to do it on the basis of a majority vote rather than the currently required two-thirds “super-majority,” sources said.

The state Constitution only requires the governor to submit a balanced budget to the Legislature in January. In recent years, the lawmakers have often approved final budgets that were balanced by the use of fiscal gimmicks and illusory revenue forecasts.

Also, the dictate of a two-thirds vote to approve a budget allows a minority in either house of the Legislature to block passage of a spending plan. California is the only state that has such a provision.

Minority opposition stymied passage of a budget for two months into the new fiscal year in 1992. The state ran out of cash and resorted to issuing IOUs to creditors for the first time since the Great Depression. This year’s 31-day impasse was the second-longest.

In theory, the job of the Constitution Revision Commission would be a political scientist’s dream come true: the freedom to start from scratch and construct a system that lacks all of the flaws and conflicts that often drag state and local government down into gridlock and political mud wrestling.

In reality, commission members have cautioned observers not to expect any utopian overhaul of government or a grand experiment along the lines of the federal Constitutional Convention of 1787, the “Miracle in Philadelphia.”

One skeptic on the commission, state Sen. Bill Leonard (R-Upland), commended the commission’s discussion process so far, but also observed Friday: “I’m not sure the commission members are really ready to make decisions as to the kind of California government they might like to see.”

Another member, Assemblyman Phillip Isenberg (D-Sacramento), said the only proposals that have been rejected outright so far are those that seem to have no practical political solution, such as an overhaul or repeal of Proposition 13, the property tax initiative of 1978.

And the commission is far from reaching a consensus on several other major problems: the organization and financing of public education, the distribution of the appropriate functions between state and local governments, and the financing of those functions, Isenberg and others said.

The idea of a one-house Legislature and other proposals such as a European-style parliamentary system may ultimately be put to the voters, but few observers expect any drastic change in the present legislative system.

“I think it just doesn’t work,” Leonard said of the unicameral idea.

A unicameral legislature has been suggested by proponents as one way of eliminating some of the conflict and red tape that seem to clog government to virtual inaction at times. They say it would lead to fewer duplicative committee hearings and floor votes, and no more conference committees.

But many of those who attended the commission’s public hearings said they did not want to speed up the legislative process, adding that they liked the multiple layers of checks and balances to guard against ill-considered new laws.

Isenberg also said he expects some of the more grandiose ideas “to fall by the side” during the process.

“We will probably put out a host of preliminary recommendations and then wait for the screaming to stop,” added Isenberg, a former mayor of Sacramento.

The commission would then pursue those features that seemed to be realistic and got at the real problems of the system, he said.

The legislation that established the commission, authored by Sen. Lucy L. Killea (I-San Diego), called for a study of ways to streamline the state budget process and to provide “a more responsive and productive government for California.”

One target of the measure was the “institutional rivalries that have obstructed the state’s ability to make significant policy changes in response to a changing California.”

Isenberg said there is considerable sentiment within the commission to abolish several of the elected state offices contained in the Constitution, such as the state treasurer and state superintendent of public instruction. They would be replaced by department or agency heads appointed by the governor.

Another likely proposal that has been made frequently in the past is to abolish the two existing tax agencies--the elected State Board of Equalization and the Franchise Tax Board. They would be succeeded by a state department of revenue headed by a gubernatorial appointee.