Here is an idea for solving California’s budget crisis.
What if the California legislature temporarily budgeted for districts according to the wishes of the district’s legislators. If an Assembly or Senate representative demanded cuts to schools, fire, etc. then the schools, fire, etc. in that representative’s district receive the entire cut! This would be an honest application of representative democracy, allowing the citizens of an area to be governed according to their wishes without it affecting all of the citizens in the state.
Wait, you say, why should only certain districts be punished with cuts? Why should only a few citizens shoulder the burden of balancing the budget through cuts? The answer is because those are the people who elected the extremist minority who are forcing the cuts, while refusing to ask the rich to pay their fair share and actually cutting taxes for huge corporations. (Yes, the budget “solution” included a huge tax cut for the Wal-Marts and Exxons.)
With this plan the residents of Santa Clarita (the
right-wing bastion of northwest LA County) could get their wish to have no schools, police, road maintenance, firefighters, etc. while the residents of San Francisco could keep their government services. And the residents of both areas would have what they want.
Or, at least, they would have the opportunity to understand just who they elected.