Crafting Laws That Serve the Public

Re “Gov. Wants a Part-Time Legislature,” April 7: Overseer Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger critiques the creativity of the state Legislature: “I like them when they’re scrambling and they really have to work hard.”

Who does Schwarzenegger think he is? Granted, being undemocratically elected governor may have inflated his mind with visions of tyrannical grandeur, but in reality his job is to work with the Legislature. Schwarzenegger’s comments suggest that he sees himself as the overseer of the Legislature, looking down on his minions while they work to achieve his directives. He should become more familiar with American history and realize that the days of overseers have long passed.

Michael Core

Alhambra

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I agree with Schwarzenegger’s proposal to have a part-time Legislature. I would do away with the state Legislature. Think how that would help with the budget and all of the “strange bills” about which the governor is worried.

We could have a once-a-month “vote day” and the governor could put any issues on the ballot so that everyone could vote on the subject. Don’t we now have those wonderful touch-screen voting machines? I know we do in Orange County.

Walt Hauenstein

Garden Grove

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I wish that Sylvia Rousseve’s assumptions were believable (letter, April 6). She says that “we elect legislators to carefully study and craft issues and proposals, and our role is to communicate our concerns through them.” Has she never heard of the cancer of lobbyists and special-interest groups that infest the halls of Congress and our Capitol in Sacramento and the capitols of the other 49 states?

If she has any doubts, she can contact Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.). Government by initiative is always a dangerous proposition, but special-interest legislation is far riskier.

T.W. Harrigan

Lawndale

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So Schwarzenegger is calling for a part-time Legislature to represent the people of our great state and do all that needs to be done for them -- replacing our constitutional democratic process with a filmmaking deadline. And his own autocratic mandates. This calls for a script -- one that includes making the governor part-time as well. Oh, that’s right. He’s already part-time -- off partying in Hawaii.

Exit stage left, Arnold. Enter stage right, a new governor -- one who knows how to govern. Lights, camera, action!

Bonnie Compton Hanson

Santa Ana

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Your April 4 editorial paints too gloomy a picture of direct democracy in California. True, reform proposals ought to address the fact that a surfeit of ballot measures clogs state ballots and overwhelms many voters. But there are significant limits on the ability of moneyed interests to dominate the initiative process.

Special interests have been much more successful in the initiative-qualification stage than in the initiative-passage stage. In fact, contrary to conventional wisdom, in the last decade political science researchers have found that special-interest money is more effective in defeating ballot measures than in passing measures that the broader public does not support.

Direct democracy can be an appropriate complement to representative government when it is used with restraint and when the public is well informed about the issues at stake and the interests involved.

Kathleen Ferraiolo

Charlottesville, Va.