Year of Special Challenges in Prospect for California : 1996 will demand new approaches and a new seriousness in Sacramento

With his unsuccessful presidential bid behind him, Gov. Pete Wilson should now refocus squarely on California. And as the Assembly emerges from a tumultuous 1995, the Legislature should also begin to address the state’s many pressing policy, revenue and infrastructure needs. Californians have grown impatient after a year of little more than bickering and posturing among their representatives in Sacramento. In 1996, amid indicators of at least a fragile economic recovery, they deserve some relief.

NEW RESPONSIBILITIES: With Congress preparing to shift federal responsibilities for welfare and other social services to the states, they will need to decide soon how to deliver these services, allocate their share of federal dollars and raise additional state revenue. In California, that process should prompt Wilson and the Legislature to overhaul the increasingly inefficient relationships that exist between the state and local governments in a host of policy areas including education, transportation, water, the environment and law enforcement.

Proposition 13, passed in 1978, has severely constrained the ability of municipalities, counties and the state to raise revenue to meet California’s expanding needs. Education, infrastructure improvements, social services, police and prisons all have been affected. Revenues have fallen far short of current needs, not to mention those projected.

California’s economic recovery, indeed its long-term future, depends on its ability to be a hub for world trade, high-tech industries and entertainment. But those industries will continue to locate here--and remain here--only if there are strong public schools, modern roads and ports, a stable water supply, a clean environment and a criminal justice system that is not overburdened. So how do we get there?

EDUCATION: With California students scoring near the bottom nationally in reading and math, our schools clearly need help. Task forces convened last spring to review the reading and math curriculum have now issued their reports. Both panels urged a return to basic skills and said the state should set standards and create a testing system to make sure students are advancing. The governor and the Legislature can help make these changes happen. Money alone will not do that, but clearly more money is essential to rebuild decrepit classrooms and add new ones to ease overcrowding. That’s why the Legislature’s first vote of 1996 should be to place the $3-billion school bond measure on the March ballot for the voters’ decision.

CRIME: The state’s tough “three strikes and you’re out” law has been in force for almost two years. It undoubtedly has put some of the worst criminals behind bars, some for life. But cracks in the justice system are now visible. Without additional funds, more trials will be delayed, more misdemeanants will be released early, prisons will become even more overcrowded and more prosecutors will be seriously overworked, jeopardizing the integrity of the criminal justice system. Los Angeles County, with the largest criminal caseload in the state by far, feels the effects of “three strikes” acutely right now; soon other counties will. All counties need help in the form of new prisons and more judges, prosecutors and public defenders.

WATER: The consensus process that resulted in the historic Bay-Delta Accord, now a year old, ended decades of bitter fighting over water in this state. That agreement, signed by the state and the federal government but involving dozens of parties and interest groups, allocates water to protect the threatened estuary ecosystem in the San Francisco Bay-San Joaquin Delta while providing reliable supplies to farms and cities across the state. Now comes the next step: deciding which infrastructure improvements are needed to implement the agreement--which reclamation equipment, fish screens, pumps and measures to protect wildlife habitat--and how to fund them. These decisions will require the governor’s leadership and timely action as well as funding appropriations by the Legislature.

THE STATE CONSTITUTION: No less important is voter consideration of a set of recommendations to overhaul California’s outdated and unwieldy state Constitution. The sweeping proposals from the state Constitutional Revision Commission would modernize state budgeting, reform the initiative process, give localities greater control over programs they operate, and replace the bicameral Legislature with a unicameral body. The Legislature and the governor have an obligation to put these thoughtful proposals before the voters. The Legislature will not find it easy to agree on these many changes, but the people of California deserve this reform and more.