POSITION IN BRIEF: Support measures to secure an orderly and simplified State Constitution; provisions which enable the Legislature to deal with state problems efficiently, flexibly and with responsibility clearly fixed, and constitutional guarantee of equal representation of all citizens in the state legislature.

POSITIONS

1. Systematic efforts to revise the Constitution through the work of commissions, legislative committees, or constitutional convention. The California Constitution should:

a. establish the framework and powers of the executive, legislative and judicial branches;

b. protect the rights of citizens through a Bill of Rights, suffrage, and the power of direct legislation;

c. provide for a Legislature apportioned substantially on a population basis with responsibility for decennial reapportionment clearly designated;

d. permit the Legislature and other elected officials to carry out their responsibilities with flexibility, unhampered by unnecessary restrictions, but with safeguards in the public interest;

e. provide for amendment or revision of the Constitution.

2. Removal from the Constitution of provisions which inhibit flexibility of governmental action to meet changing conditions including:

a. restrictions as to length of legislative sessions and provisions for recess;

b. highly detailed provisions including administrative and procedural detail.

3. Opposition to constitutional provisions which delineate tax sources and rates, which grant exemptions, and which earmark tax funds for specific services.

4. Improvements in orderliness and clarity, including elimination of conflicting, repetitive, and obsolete provisions.

5. Opposition to mandatory constitutional provisions for voter approval before a low rent housing project may be developed, con structed, or acquired by a public body.

Adopted 1957; Updated 1965-67; Readopted at the last convention