1997_03 The Daily Collegian March 1997

              TJHE DAILY
COLLEGIAN
Tuesday, March 4, 1997
Opinion
Telephone: "(209) 278-5732
California constitution
needs to be overhauled
for the new century
By Joel Eanes
The Daily Collegian
Practically everyone in the
United States has a fundamental
respect for the federal Constitution.
But there are 50 other constitutions
in this nation, and they too form a
fundamental law in the states they
govern. California's, however, may
not be up to that challenge.
The federal Constitution lays out
a broad, basic outline of American
government. The gaps are filled in
by statute, or simply left alone.
* That's what a constitution, by defi¬
nition, is — a basic law.
To keep it that way, amending is
difficult California's Constitution,
however, is clogged with detail.
The federal Constitution spends
one paragraph to lay out the prin¬
ciple of equal protection under the
law.
California' s equal protection
clause also has one paragraph, but
the section then devotes five to how
school busing is affected by it. The
federal Constitution lays out crimi¬
nal procedure in four paragraphs.
California's contains fourteen para¬
graphs of regulations.
The federal Constitution lays out
taxation in one clause, and budget¬
ing in three. The California Consti¬
tution devotes an incredible 54
pages to taxation and budgeting.
Far from being a broad outline
of government, the California Con¬
stitution lays out a detailed bureau¬
cracy. The federal Constitution spe¬
cifically provides for only eight
entities—the presidency and vice
presidency, Congress, Supreme
Court, Electoral College and the
army, navy, and militia.
The California Constitution cre¬
ates such agencies as the Fish and
Game Commission, Public Utilities
Commission and Department of
Alcoholic Bevprage Control, with
detailed instructions for each.
While the President and Con¬
gress can reorganize the federal
bureaucracy by a simple statute,
reorganization of many of
California's agencies would require
a constitutional amendment.
The state constitution is also
,. clogged with material that can
hardly be considered fundamental
in nature. The location of the capi¬
tal gets a paragraph, and the means
to move it another. Legislative re¬
tirement gets four paragraphs,
honoraria get six and legislators.'
participation in Social Security gets
five.
Maintenance of the capitol
building gets three paragraphs, the
discipline of judges gets 20. the
civil service gets 43. public educa¬
tion gets 30, and water rights get
62. Any changes to any of these
would require a constitutional
amendment.
The difficult means of amend¬
ing the constitution is a double-
edged sword. On the one hand, a
fundamental document should re¬
quire something more than a rou¬
tine change of public opinion to
amend.
But on the other, it means that
when a flawed or obsolete provi¬
sion is included — as is inevitable
in any kind of law — this provi¬
sion will be much more difficult to
correct or update. And the longer
and more detailed a constitution is,
the more these kinds of provisions
will appear.
Many of the constitution's pro¬
visions are badly outdated. The plu¬
ral executive, for instance, may
have seemed like a great idea in the
days of the railroad barons, but it
has often meant that the governor's
cabinet, instead of being his most
trusted advisors, have been mem¬
bers of the opposition party, aim¬
ing for the governor's job.
The man w^d would take over
if the governor's office became va¬
cant, the lieutenant governor, isn't
elected on the same ticket as the
Please see EANES page 5.
Dating service leaves a lot to be desired
By Mats Hellgren
The Daily Collegian
I was researching in the library
the other day, when I noticed how
someone approached me. He
stopped by my table quickly. I did
not look up, but 1 noticed in the
corner of my eye how he dropped
some sort of paper on my desk.I
noticed a flyer in front of me. It was
a commercial flyer trying to sell a
dating service.
This flyer annoyed me since I
believe the library should be free
from solicitors.
For the same reason you don't
scream in a library, you don't so¬
licit, it's simply rude and unculti¬
vated.
Another nuisance was the con¬
tent of the flyer. It lacked any form
of grammar, in fact, it was an insult
to anyone participating in higher
learning. I came to the conclusion
that it must have been written by a
dyslexic foreign student who
flunked ESL 001.
The flyer was titled "Forever
Your's." Yes. there was an apostro¬
phe in "yours," which symbolizes
everything. The body of the flyer
consisted of five paragraphs of
which all had at least one spelling
error accompanied by multiple
grammatical errors. Of all the junk
I find in my mailbox daily, I've
never seen anything as poorly writ¬
ten as this.
"Clients never have to be con¬
cern with a lot of the Dating ex¬
penses, location place, and time of
social engagements its Free.
Free..."
What is location place? Could
' maybe one of the words be enough?
A client "never have to be concern
with a lot of expenses." well later
they say it's, "Free."
This so-called coordinator ser¬
vice claims to be able to screen-
away bad dates. The coordinators
are, "specialized in the: warning
signs such as, bad vibes, bad tem¬
pers, aggressions, and jealousy..."
They determine all this by inter¬
viewing prospective clients.
The funniest part of it all is when
they proclaim "No Blind Dating
How can you get hooked up with
strangers through a dating coordi¬
nator without blind dating?
It seems sort of impossible to
roe. at the least. Maybe they mean
that all clients have 20/20 vision?.
Flanking the flyer are pictures ol
models, who obviously have no
need of a dating service. I would
not be surprised if these were cut
out from some magazine, judging
from the overall quality of the flyer
"Forever Your's" claim to be "the
leading dating service."
Please. God. keep me away from
the other crummier ones. I wonder
what their names might be:
"Lovve:Buy mail" or "Datting
Un'limm-itted?"
The purpose of this attack is not
to destroy someone's paltry way of
making a living, but to keep our li¬
brary free from solicitors.
If this goes unnoticed, there will
soon be vendors trying to push T-
shirts and copies of "Dianetics"
while we feverishly try to concen¬
trate on our studies.
Daily Collegian
California State University, Fresno
Business Manager
Kari L. Swanson
Copy Editors
Tom Sepulveda
Elaina Conroy
Jevon C. Swanson
Production Manager
Monica Stanford
Editor in Chief
James M. Ward
News Editor
Matthew.Hart
'Features Editor
David Childers
Ad Manager
Jevon C. Swanson
Sports Editor
Luis Hernandez
Photographers
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Ryan Weber
Web Production
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Staff Writers:
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Cheryl Ensom, Theresa Alvarado.
Jennifer Smith, Rosanna Tolosa,
Hakim Allen,
Ruthie Longley Alekseyev,
Derek Walter
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Kael Moffat. Jennifer Starks,
Ranjeet Randhawa
Columnists:
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Manuel Annear,
Joel Eanes, Hadi Yazdanpanah,
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Bethany Thompson
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The Daily Collegian is published five
limes a week for and by the students of
California State University. Fresno.
Opinions expressed in the Collegian
are not necessarily those of the entire
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the right to edit letters for length and
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letters must be typed and should not
exceed 250 words.
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