Golden State-style constitution

Editor's note: Michael Ackley's columns may include satire and parody based on current events, and thus mix fact with fiction. He assumes informed readers will be able to tell which is which.

"We have to face facts: Our state constitution is beyond repair."

So declared Howard Bashford, perhaps the most powerful man – albeit behind the scenes – in the state of California.

Bashford, the ultimate string-puller in the tangled skein of Golden State politics, had called a meeting of his fellow twine-tuggers – billionaire political contributors, Hollywood producers, motion picture actors, lobbyists for business and union interests, ethnic, racial and cultural leaders, drug dealers, and even a couple of legislators.

"Look at the thing," said Bashford. "It's a bloated patchwork of special-interest initiatives, social engineering, and legislative micro-management, layered onto what was once a simple statement of governing principles.

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"We have to fix it, and the only fix that makes sense is a constitutional convention."

"I agree!" shouted a state senator. "But who is going to write it? How will we keep the drafters under control?"

"We are going to write it," said Bashford, with a sly smile. "Then we'll get the Capitol establishment aboard and pretend to do it more or less in the open."

There was general assent, but then the trouble began.

"What's our model?" demanded a business delegate.

"Why not the United States Constitution?" replied Bashford.

"A document written by old, white men!" shouted feminist leader Amy Handleman.

"Actually, most of them were pretty young," said another attendee.

"But white men," said Handleman. "We have to be more representative."

"So be it," said Bashford, "but let's use the U.S. Constitution for starters, and make it better. Let us start small, with a committee to draft an opening statement."

And so a representative group was formed to improve upon the 52 words of the Preamble to the Constitution of the United States of America: "We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."

After months of debate, this swelled to the following 279 words: "We the people of the State of California, in all our ethnic and cultural diversity, embracing African Americans, Latinos, Chicanos and Hispanics, Euro-Americans, Aleuts, Asians, Pacific Islanders, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgendered and questioning individuals, as well as the autochthonous peoples of the American continents, and members of various value systems, including Muslims (Shiite, Sunni, Wahabi and Sufi), Christians (including Presbyterians, etc.), Zoroastrians, Buddhists, atheists, Santerians and cargo cultists, in order to form a more perfect environment in which all persons may maintain the dignity of their separate and mutually and equally valued identities, establish justice of either the Anglo-European or Shariah variety (providing that right and wrong actually can be determined in a world full of moral ambiguity and ethics of indeterminate foundation), insure domestic tranquility by making sure nobody's feelings are hurt by the expression of invidious and bigoted opinion (to be defined and outlawed further herein), provide for the common defense by talking with those people who have come to regard us as their enemy because of our arrogant use of military and economic power, our cultural colonialism or disrespect for their values and cultural institutions, including but not limited to female circumcision and honor killings, promote welfare generally, and secure the non-denominational/religious blessings of liberty (within reason, as defined by the Committee on Reasonable Liberty – to be defined further herein) to ourselves and our posterity, provided we want a posterity, the viability of which should be an unfettered choice for all women, do ordain (nondenominationally/religiously) and establish this Constitution for the State of California, or portions thereof that are not ceded to La Raza for the new state of Aztlan."

Bashford read it with a grim smile on his lips.

"Well," he said, "it's California, after all."