1.30.10

Sacramento Bee Editorial:  The court battle involving Mayor Kevin Johnson's strong-mayor initiative has thrust some potent questions before Sacramento and all of California:

Can voters go directly to the ballot to overhaul or modernize their City Hall? Or does the state constitution force them to go through a lengthy charter revision process that, to some extent, can be checked by forces resistant to change?

If this ruling stands, lawmakers will need to step in and make a constitutional fix. Voters deserve the right to go to the ballot and fix City Hall when it is not serving their interests.

Such questions are now before the courts. They were put there because of a lawsuit filed by Bill Camp, a Sacramento labor leader. Camp argues that Johnson's strong mayor initiative – which would give the mayor broad new powers, including some now granted to the city manager and the City Council – goes beyond a simple amendment to the city charter.

And in his final ruling Jan. 21, Sacramento Superior Court Judge Loren McMaster agreed with Camp, blocking the initiative from the June ballot.

If this ruling stands, lawmakers will need to step in and make a constitutional fix. Voters deserve the right to go to the ballot and fix City Hall when it is not serving their interests.

http://www.sacbee.com/325/story/2500919.html