The time is now for wholesale change

It’s time for spring cleaning -- whether smartening up the backyard, scrubbing the old boat or scouring the Capitol.

Brush away the cobwebs. Mend the creaky gear. Toss the broken junk.

I have a long to-do list for the Capitol. Not just simple cleaning, but some major remodeling.

Its importance will become increasingly evident as summer approaches and the politicians move from budget belligerence into a bad bottleneck. This brawl could be the worst ever.

Not just the budget, but water, healthcare, education. Name the issue. This place hasn’t been working well.

So, here’s what I would haul to the dump:

The two-thirds majority vote requirement for legislative passage of money bills, including tax hikes. Somebody bought that at a garage sale several decades ago and we’ve been tripping over it ever since. It’s the biggest cause of Capitol gridlock.

Let the majority party act and be held accountable for the consequences. When there’s an inflexible minority and a two-thirds vote mandate, the only result is dysfunction and summer-long stalemate.

Before 1962, at least, a budget could be passed by a simple majority vote if it didn’t increase spending by more than 5%. It wasn’t until 1978 -- through Proposition 13 -- that a state tax hike required a two-thirds vote.

Term limits. It’s like firing the lawn guy every six years whether he’s doing a good job or not. It takes awhile for the new hire to learn even what he doesn’t know, like how to cultivate relationships. Voters came close to reforming term limits in the February election, but were deterred from positive public policy by the negative personalities of political leaders.

Gerrymandering. It’s like letting your kid’s Little League team design its own baseball diamond and choose the umpires. The game’s rigged. Legislators have been choosing their own voters. An independent commission, rather than the self-serving Legislature, should draw legislative districts. We need general election competition that produces a more pragmatic, less partisan bunch oriented toward the center.

The closed primary. This really is a relic. Toss it. Both major parties are losing members while the ranks of “declined to state” independents grow.

But we cling to party primaries where the most far-right or hard-left extremists usually win nominations. That combined with gerrymandering creates a highly partisan, polarized Legislature. We need a system where any voter, regardless of party, can participate in a primary.

Such a system, from Washington state, recently was sanctioned by the U.S. Supreme Court. It works like this: Candidates of all political stripes run on one primary ballot. There are no party nominations. The top two vote-getters, regardless of party, advance to the November election.

And these things are in sorry need of repair:

The initiative system. It’s rotten, taken over by special interests in cahoots with consultants, a growing political-industrial complex. The frequent result is ballot-box budgeting, with voters tying the hands of their elected representatives, forbidding them to prioritize spending. Some voter-approved programs operate like automatic sprinklers, but are almost impossible to shut off.

One fix would be to bring back the “indirect initiative,” which was foolishly discarded in the mid-1960s. Under that system, the Legislature would get a crack at altering an initiative before it went on the ballot. Sponsors could accept or reject the lawmakers’ tinkering. But the Legislature could serve as a filter for flaws.

“There are too many initiatives on the ballot,” says Bob Stern, president of the Center for Governmental Studies. “If the Legislature can resolve the problem, that’s the best place to do it because it has the experts and can hold public hearings.”

Campaign finance rules. Either fix or chuck them. There are enough loopholes for a colony of squirrels. Set up some form of public financing so the politicians are bought by the public rather than by the special interests. Try it out first with just a couple of offices, such as secretary of state and state superintendent of public instruction. They should be off-bounds to high-rolling favor seekers and partisan politics anyway.

If public financing won’t fly, eliminate all the rules -- the contribution limits, the convoluted shell games -- and allow candidates to raise whatever they can from anybody. But require them to report online to the secretary of state within 24 hours any donation over $250. That way, voters can follow the money. Also, close out those special kitties used by the governor and legislators as personal slush funds.

Legislative compensation. Lawmakers receive a tax-free, daily expense allowance of $170 that should be an embarrassment. To receive it, every day of the week, they can’t be out of session for more than three days in a row. It’s comical the contortions they go through to keep that money flowing. Lawmakers hold “check-in” sessions where they “report” but don’t meet. Junk it.

Pay for reasonable air travel. Provide an ordinary state car and a modest housing allowance. Demand receipts. But pay wages the same as Congress: $169,300 annually. The salary for legislators currently is $116,000. Leaders make $133,000. Compensating them fairly and honestly would allow lawmakers to arrange their work schedule to benefit the boss -- the electorate -- not merely the family bank account.

Budgeting. The governor is right: This family needs a rainy-day fund, a jar in which to stash surplus change when times are good and to draw from when money’s tight. Some fiscal discipline -- a spending limit -- makes sense, given the history of debt. A close examination of outgo might disclose unnecessary expenses. But this desperate situation also calls for a willingness to generate more income. Start by modernizing the outdated tax structure.

Achieving even some of this could be back-breaking politically, because there hasn’t been a good spring cleaning at the Capitol in many decades. There has only been a lot of silly junk brought in that cluttered up the place.

---

george.skelton@latimes.com