Reconnecting Politicians to the Citizenry

“Seeds of an Uprising” (editorial, Aug. 24) contained the usual recommendations that make sense only to professional politicians and their apologists. The only one that makes any sense is taking redistricting away from the Legislature. The problem is not term limits but professional politicians. As long as you have full-time legislators, they will be busy looking out for themselves first and foremost. Remember, it was a full-time professional Legislature that passed the electricity deregulation bill and dithered on property taxes, which resulted in Proposition 13. The Legislature has simply passed the buck on all controversial issues to the people. Had the professional legislators done their jobs the people would not have passed term limits.

It was a part-time Legislature that created the state water project, the state highway system and the master plan for higher education, which produced the world’s finest public university system. The one reform not mentioned is making the Legislature more democratic by removing the power of the committee chairman and leadership. Why should a committee chairman be able to dictate the terms of a bill and shower his district with pork?

Andrius V. Varnas

Redondo Beach

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Clearly, Gov. Gray Davis has become the lighting rod for the dissent of the people of California, and there is plenty of blame to go around. But as The Times suggests, amending Proposition 13, changing the state Constitution to make it more difficult for voter initiatives and lowering the threshold to a 55% vote in the Legislature in order to raise taxes seem to be antithetical to the anger and frustration expressed within the popularity of the recall. The Times, it seems, continues to support the leftist status quo by promoting an agenda of eroding protection from property tax increases, making it more difficult for voters to bypass an unrepresentative government via the initiative process and freeing the Legislature to create and raise more taxes. These proposals will accelerate the bus heading for the cliff.

Tracy Taft

Anaheim Hills

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You correctly describe how California’s current campaign financing works: “politicians shake down contributors and pay them back with favors at the citizenry’s expense.” Fortunately, there’s now a better model. It’s called “clean-money campaigning.” This requires a prospective candidate to collect a large number of signatures, accompanied by contributions of $5 each. These are submitted to the state to qualify for public financing.

Both Arizona and Maine have enacted this form of public financing. It allows for viable competition by those not financed by the special interests. And the results are most encouraging. For example, in Arizona, seven out of nine statewide offices, including that of the governor, were won by clean-money candidates. Maine’s Legislature recently passed a form of universal health care that has been signed by the governor. Clean-money candidates there now hold over half the state’s legislative seats. Efforts are underway in California to enact similar legislation. For further information: www.californiacleanmoney.org.

Ellen Stern Harris

Beverly Hills

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Spending this summer in Vermont, away from home in California, gives me a perspective I do not enjoy. Everyone is laughing at California -- with good reason. If the public doesn’t care about figures, as Arnold Schwarzenegger says, then why is Davis being recalled? How stupid does he think we are? Don’t answer that question. He could be right about that one.

Leonard A. Zivitz

Fullerton

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Poll after poll, including the most recent Times poll (Aug. 23), indicates that three out of four voters in California believe that the state is headed in the wrong direction. Jobs are fleeing the state. People are fleeing the state. Who do they think is responsible? For the past five years, one party has been firmly in control in California, and that is the Democratic Party. It has set the agenda. Ask yourself: Do you want more of the same?

Joe Behan

Long Beach