Do-Over

So I commented on a blog post over at Fox and Hounds Daily. The post was about calling a constitutional convention to rewrite CA's constitution. I commented under the psuedonym O&R for Otto & Rhys, my sons. My first instinct was to cynically spoof the idea of a constitutional convention. I mean, seriously, the same interest groups and public officials who can't agree on raising taxes or cutting services will come together and put forth a coherent set of laws that will rule the land? Please. They've already caused enough problems extending and amending the original document. In fact, the new constitutional provisions and amendments are the reason people feel like we should start all over again. Isn't it?

So I wrote a what I thought was a comical comment. But now that I've gone thinktank on what I originally said, I'm not so sure my idea wouldn't work.

Here's what I said:

"Instead of a convention, how about an initiative that expunges all changes made to the CA constitution after a certain year. I can see the campaign slogan now: "Vote Yes on Prop. Whatever! California needs a do-over." Seriously though, rather than starting from the beginning, picking a date from which to slash and burn might work better. Yeah, we'd have a kind of wild-west regulatory environment for a while since wide swaths of the constitution would literally vanish overnight. But the vacuum left behind would force the Legislature and the Governor to really focus their energies and limit distractions. What worked before but was lost would easily return. What didn't won't. If things really go awry, there's always the remaining portion of the Constitution to fall back upon."

I'm not a constitutional lawyer, so I don't know if it's even legal to pick a date and expunge parts of the constitution. But it seems to me if expunging parts of the constitution is legal, that would be an easier political route than trying to write the whole thing all over again.