Official Vows Further Effort to Update State Constitution

The chairman of the now-defunct California Constitution Revision Commission on Monday lamented the Legislature’s refusal to accept any of the commission’s proposed reforms, but vowed to continue to seek change “because I think it is critical for California.”

Chairman William Hauck of Sacramento and the other 22 commission members labored through thousands of hours of hearings and meetings over the past two years in drafting a comprehensive proposed overhaul of the state Constitution, much of which dates to 1879.

A heavily diluted remnant of the package of proposed constitutional amendments failed in the state Senate, gathering only 9 votes in favor and 17 against, shortly before the 1995-96 session of the Legislature was adjourned early Sunday morning. The bill never came to the Assembly floor.

Proposed constitutional amendments require 27 votes in the 40-member Senate, and 54 out of 80 potential votes in the state Assembly, to win a spot on the ballot.

The defeat was no great surprise to Sacramento insiders. The commission’s 38 recommendations went to the Legislature in the spring, but generally were ignored until the final week.

By the time a Senate-House conference committee approved a proposed package, it had been pared to just five major provisions for the 1998 ballot--not the 1996 election as originally planned by the commission.

Hauck attributed the lack of enthusiasm among lawmakers in part to preoccupation with the upcoming election and to a general polarization of politics in Sacramento.

“We were proposing some fairly far-reaching changes,” Hauck said in a telephone interview Monday. “I think the Legislature in an election year was not overly anxious to deal with this. . . . The politics of the Legislature and the state are more polarized today than they once were. Striking compromises in that environment is not easy.”

But he said efforts to revamp the Constitution would not end, even though the commission formally went out of business July 1. Hauck also said he is organizing a group that will include some former commission members to pursue the goal of constitutional reform in California.

“I think we will continue to pursue the ideas . . . in the hope that we can get a real package of reform on the ballot in 1998,” said Hauck, who is president of a national governmental relations consulting firm.

The version of the commission’s plan that finally went to a vote early Sunday would have required that the governor and lieutenant governor run for election on the same party ticket, shortened legislative sessions, required the Legislature and governor to adopt a balanced state budget each year, given more control over schools to local boards, and required the governor and Legislature to reorganize local government in California.

Hauck, chosen to head the commission by Republican Gov. Pete Wilson, is a former Wilson aide, but also served as the chief of staff to the late Robert Moretti, a Democrat, when Moretti was speaker of the Assembly.

The commission’s chief legislative advocates were Sen. Lucy Killea (I-San Diego) and Assemblyman Phillip Isenberg (D-Sacramento), both of whom also served on the commission. Both Killea and Isenberg are leaving the Legislature at the end of this year because of term limits.