The effort to call a new constitutional convention for California appears to be sputtering financially.
The group Repair California, saying the state’s system of governance is broken, has been working to place a pair of measures on the November ballot that would convene the state’s first constitutional convention since the 1800s.
But spokesman John Grubb told the radio station KQED Wednesday that the organization has largely stopped its signature-gathering campaign because it needs to raise more funds to go forward.
Almost all measures that qualify for the California ballot through the petition process use paid signature gatherers, at a price measured in millions of dollars.
Last week, Grubb accused signature-gathering firms of a dirty tricks campaign to “blacklist” Repair California, presumably out of fear that a constitutional convention could reform the state’s initiative process.
