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STOCKTON -- Californians wondering if they are up to rewriting their constitution should come here, to the University of the Pacific and Robert Benedetti's senior seminar on California government.

For six of the past seven years, Benedetti's class has overhauled the state constitution as a year-long project. If nothing else, his students are proof that a group of informed citizens with a little bit of guidance and some diligent research might be able to get the job done.

Just such a task may be in the state's future. A group called Repair California is preparing to circulate two measures for the November 2010 ballot that would trigger a constitutional convention. More than 400 people from around the state – some elected, some appointed – would meet for months to overhaul the underpinnings of California government. Their proposals would then go back to the voters for final approval.

A group that large might have trouble finding a coherent consensus. But the tiny yet diverse subset of Californians that Benedetti guides through a similar exercise each year manages to zero in on many of the problems political scientists have said are at the root of the state's dysfunction.

The professor's classes have proposed streamlining the executive branch; reducing the size of legislative districts to make lawmakers more responsive to their constituents; lowering the vote thresholds for passing a budget or raising taxes; and reforming the relationship between state and local government. They've argued for limiting, but not ending, the initiative process.

And long before California voters warmed to the idea in 2008, Benedetti's classes suggested an independent commission to redraw the state's political boundaries.

"A constitutional convention would probably come to a set of prudent changes that wouldn't dramatically change the way we do business," Benedetti told me in a recent interview.

If you think dramatic change is necessary, his conclusion might disappoint. But most of the skeptics seem to be leaning in the other direction, fearing that a convention would run off the rails and endorse radical reforms that would make the state's problems even worse.

The advocates of a constitutional convention counter that their proposal would limit the convention's agenda before it started: no tax increases (or cuts); no social issues, meaning gay marriage would not be on the table. Some of Benedetti's classes have suggested changes in those areas. But for the most part their proposals have called for incremental changes.

"These are not revolutionaries," he says. "They're not really intent on undoing the essential progressive thread of the California Constitution."

Benedetti begins each term with readings on California government from a selection of essays. He has the students compare California's lengthy constitution to the much sparser American document. Then they examine other forms of democracy to see how their structure differs from ours.

"The really amazing thing about Americans is that they think every place else works like this place, but it just works not so well," he says. One thing he points out: Most democracies work under a parliamentary system that unites the legislative and executive branches.

He also brings in guest speakers, including authors, experts and some politicians. He offers supplemental readings. This year, among other books, the students are reading former Assembly Speaker Willie Brown's autobiography and a biography of Jesse Unruh, the former Assembly Speaker who was an architect of California's full-time Legislature.

Brown's book, Benedetti says, is full of self-serving anecdotes and a spin on every event that puts the author in the best possible light. But he says it still serves a valuable function.

"He talks about his career as if he were a saint," Benedetti says. "They need to hear it that way, to understand how leaders justify themselves."

I spoke to the class last month, offering my observations after more than 25 years as a journalist watching every level of California government. The students peppered me with 20 probing questions about the initiative process, the two-thirds rule for raising taxes in the Legislature, the value of direct democracy, the role of the courts, the separate election of statewide officers, and much, much more.

Daniel Weintraub has reported on California politics and public policy for more than 20 years. Reach him at daniel.weintraub@gmail.com.