California There It Goes

Mick Jagger famously remarked on his first visit to California that "It's not like the rest of the country, is it?" Righto, Mick, and while it is a place of incredible beauty and diversity, it's government and citizenry have conspired to drive it into the ground.

I do not join the pundits who have tired of California's rank ungovernability and wish that it would just slide into the Pacific Ocean, but I'm really sick of reading about its myriad problems, most of them self-inflicted. And then John Cole hit on what might be its biggest problem: California's constitution has been amended over 500 times in 159 years and now runs to 175 pages.

Contrast that with the U.S. Constitution, which has been amended a mere 27 times in 223 years.