Budget reform group California Forward prepares for 2010 ballot measure
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Silicon Valley Mercury News: When Bruce McPherson was asked two years ago to join a group trying to make state government run better, he knew his effort would not be in vain. "This was not going to be a report that gets written and put on a shelf," said McPherson, a termed-out Santa Cruz state senator and former secretary of state. "I know the governor is interested in what we would come up with." This month, the 15-member panel known as California Forward -- which includes a disproportionate number of representatives from the Monterey Bay Area -- issued its recommendations for budget reform, with a plea to lower the two-thirds voting threshold for passing a budget while advocating more accountability over state spending. The group hails the proposal, which is often complex but with a simple, singular aim, as a bipartisan way to get the state's fiscal house in order. If lawmakers and the governor don't act on the recommendations by the end of the legislative session in September, the group intends to take its reform platform to voters in a ballot measure next year. "If substantial, meaningful reform can't be enacted in California in 2010, I have no idea when it could be enacted," said Santa Cruz County Treasurer and former state Assemblyman Fred Keeley, who also sits on California Forward's leadership council. "This is about as bad as I hope it ever gets." State leaders continue to wrestle with California's ailing finances with little room to proceed, given the constraints of budgeting. The state is still reeling from months of deadlock over the budget and just now beginning to see the effects of unprecedented program cuts. California Forward's recommendations are among a growing voice for wholesale change in Sacramento, with some calling for a part-time Legislature and others a constitutional convention to rewrite the rules for state government altogether.
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