Another possible -- and perhaps more grass-roots -- election method is to select delegates by county caucuses. Candidates could present themselves to their local constituencies and neighbors.
But what caucuses would do the electing, and who would be the members? The caucus systems in most states have been replaced with primaries because caucuses were notorious for low participation and domination by the most zealous activists. And delegates selected by caucus may not be representative of the entire state.
For The Record
Los Angeles Times Friday, June 26, 2009 Home Edition Main News Part A Page 33 Editorial pages Desk 1 inches; 48 words Type of Material: Correction
Constitutional convention: A June 22 Op-Ed article discussed three ways to choose delegates to a proposed convention: appointment, election and random selection. The California Constitution allows only for election; the other two methods would have to be established as part of an initiative that sets up the convention.
RANDOM SELECTION: This method might sound the strangest but actually may hold the most promise. It has been used in Canada and elsewhere. A scientific sampling of Californians would be randomly selected from the statewide voter list, like a jury pool.
The Bay Area Council, a group of business leaders, has proposed randomly selecting 400 Californians to create a body of average citizens who could bring their common sense and pragmatism to the problems at hand. Those delegates would be paid to participate for eight months, starting with an intensive two-month education process in which they would hear from many experts about the problems and potential solutions for California.
Random selection likely would be the best method for ensuring a truly representative body and for shielding delegates against special-interest influence. And a group made up of "people just like us" brings a sense of grass-roots legitimacy to the process.
Interestingly, a statewide poll commissioned by the New America Foundation in November 2006 found strong support (73%) for a randomly selected deliberative body, and that the public has a lot more trust in such a "citizen body" than in a government-appointed panel or even a panel of independent experts.
So the voters may be out in front of the leaders on this one. After considering all the possibilities, random selection may turn out to be the "least worst" method. California also could try an interesting hybrid, selecting delegates by a combination of random selection, election or appointment.
However the delegates are selected, their proposals would be put on the ballot for voters to decide. One way or another, it would be the voters of California who design California 2.0.
