IS ARNOLD JUST INVITING CHAOS? RE-DO OF CONSTITUTION MAY OPEN CAN OF WORMS.

Byline: Steve Geissinger Sacramento Bureau

SACRAMENTO - Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is essentially staging the first constitutional convention in 126 years through a special election to revamp the jumbled California Constitution, analysts said Tuesday.

But the path he's chosen around a convention to institute his sweeping reforms is opening what analysts and others called a ``Pandora's box.'' The move could backfire as the moderate Republican governor's critics scramble to put their own varied measures on the ballot.

``This special election is a constitutional convention without delegates - a shortcut version,'' said Barbara O'Connor of the Center for the Study of Politics in Sacramento. ``And you can't control what other initiatives qualify. It's opening a storm door.''

Schwarzenegger insists a spending control measure, a public-employee pension overhaul, and paying teachers on merit are among major solutions for ending deficit woes.

In his State of the State speech, Schwarzenegger called the constitution broken, and managed with such ``madness and lunacy'' that he would call a special election, with or without the help of the Legislature.

Legal experts agree in numerous reports that the California Constitution has been amended so much - more than 400 times in a century - that it's dysfunctional by most measures.

``It is stupefyingly detailed - everything from art galleries to burial plots to fishing nets to parking lots is mentioned,'' Larry Arnn wrote after serving on the mid-1990s Constitution Revision Commission. ``It is not, in a sense, a constitution at all.''

There's too much at stake politically, however, to really put power in the hands of citizens with a constitutional convention, as other states do and have done, analysts said.

``The political actors - the Legislature and the governor - would lose control if they handed it over to a convention,'' said Bruce Cain, director of the University of California at Berkeley's Institute of Governmental Studies.

Under the California Constitution, the Legislature, by two-thirds vote, can place the question of whether to call a constitutional revision convention before voters. If approved, delegates elected from throughout the state would meet and forge proposals that are put to a statewide vote.

To sidestep the need for a convention, lawmakers won voter approval in 1962 allowing them to submit their own proposed constitutional revisions to the electorate - a power they've used repeatedly. And no governors have used the initiative process more effectively and popularly than Schwarzenegger, especially with his latest move.

``But this is fake populism because of how the governor is running this pseudo-constitutional convention,'' said David McCuan, a political science professor at California State University, Sonoma.

``Calling on people to cast out the special interests is a compelling and very popular message but one with little bite ... it carries with it a host of unintended consequences.''

Democrats, for instance, want to put before voters everything from a car buyers' bill of rights, to a higher minimum wage, to mechanisms for buying cheaper prescription drugs from Canada.

Steve Geissinger, [phone]

sgeissinger(at)angnewspapers.com