Dan Walters: 2012 could wind up being a big year in California politics

A year from now, we Californians may look back on 2012 as one of those momentous years for politics.

Or not.

Certainly the makings of a big year are there – new legislative and congressional districts drawn by an independent commission instead of politicians, a new "top-two" primary election system, a chronic state budget crisis, potentially dozens of pithy ballot measures and an economy that's only beginning to emerge from a very deep recession.

Oh yes, and a presidential election in which California could play some role, perhaps in choosing the Republican challenger to President Barack Obama.

But whether the makings evolve into something of more than passing interest depends on how politicians as well as obviously angry and alienated voters act.

In theory, the new districts and the new primary system should produce a Legislature with fewer members who are robotically committed to their political patrons and more willing to do the public's long-neglected business. But that's only theory, and past efforts at political reform have had unintended and unsavory consequences. So we'll see.

During the first year of Jerry Brown's second stint as governor, he and the Legislature took some steps toward closing the budget deficit, but he was unable to get temporary tax extensions to close the remainder. He now hopes that voters will raise taxes this year.

However, Brown's is just one of several tax measures headed to the ballot, and unless he can clear the field, the profusion of competing tax hikes could doom them all. It looms as a major test of Brown's political acumen.

But raising taxes isn't the only issue that will or may face voters this year. Others include chopping unions' power to garner political funds from members' paychecks, a referendum challenging the redistricting commission's state Senate maps, returning the Legislature to a part-time body, a state spending limit, the death penalty and overturning Dream Act college aid for illegal immigrants.

These high-octane ballot measures – no one knows how many – will be clustered in November because Brown and lawmakers decreed that all initiatives and referendums should go on the general election ballot, an action clearly aimed at minimizing chances that voters will pass the so-called "paycheck protection" measure that unions despise.

There will be only a few previously qualified measures on the June primary ballot, as a result. And that may depress Democratic voter turnout in June while Republicans could have a rare chance at influencing the GOP's presidential nomination if the multi-candidate contest is still unresolved by then, and that would mean a heavy turnout of Republican voters.

No one doubts, however, that Obama would win in California in November, regardless of which candidate the GOP nominates.