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California Crackup: How Reform Broke the Golden State and How We Can Fix It
Is California beyond repair? A sizable number of Golden State citizens have concluded that it is. Incessant budget crises plus a government paralyzed by partisan gridlock have led to demands for reform, even a constitutional convention. But what, exactly, is wrong and how can we fix it? In California Crackup , Joe Mathews and Mark Paul provide clear and informed answers. Their fast-paced and often humorous narrative deftly exposes the constitutional origins of our current political and economic problems and furnishes a uniquely California innovative solutions that allow Californians to debate their choices, settle on the best ones, hold elected officials accountable for results, and choose anew if something doesn’t work.
224 pages, Paperback
First published July 5, 2010
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210 people want to read
About the author
Joe Mathews
17 books8 followersMark Paul, senior scholar at the New America Foundation and a visiting scholar at the Institute of Governmental Studies at UC Berkeley, is a leading expert on California policy and politics, with three decades of varied experience as a journalist, policy thinker, and state official. He is the co-author, with Joe Mathews, of California Crackup: How Reform Broke the Golden State and How It Can Be Fixed.
Mark is formerly deputy editorial page editor of the Sacramento Bee and deputy treasurer of the state of California. His recent work on California issues has appeared in the Los Angeles Times, San Francisco Chronicle, Sacramento Bee, and The American Interest, and in leading California blogs, including Calbuzz, California Progress Report, and Blockbuster Democracy. He is co-author, with Micah Weinberg, of Remapping the California Electorate, in R. Jeffrey Lustig, ed., Remaking California: Reclaiming the Public Good (Heyday Books: 2010)."
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October 17, 2015In its April 20th, 2011, issue, the Economist did an incredible eight-article special issue on California’s seriously dysfunction economic and governance quandary. See here for an index (it appears to be outside the Economist’s pay-for-content wall).
Contents of that special issue:
• The people's will .
• Origin of the species .
• War by initiative .
• Stateside and abroad .
• The withering branch .
• A lesson in mediocrity .
• What do you know? .
• Burn the wagons .
• Sources and acknowledgments .
This book, California Crackup: How Reform Broke the Golden State and How We Can Fix It, is listed first among the article’s sources.
Why would this series of articles (and probably this book) be of interest to anyone outside of California? The principle culprit is argued to be “direct democracy” — the ability of the impassioned mob to impose its will. My thesis is that the past few decades has transformed mass culture — television, then the web — from a relatively conservative elitist institution into one that now tremendously accentuates and empowers that same mob rule. If it arouses passions, it can be turned into profit, and the profit will be higher if those passions are further inflamed. The dysfunction that started in California for other reasons is spreading like a metastasizing cancer throughout American democracy.
Good luck with that.
Contents of that special issue:
• The people's will .
• Origin of the species .
• War by initiative .
• Stateside and abroad .
• The withering branch .
• A lesson in mediocrity .
• What do you know? .
• Burn the wagons .
• Sources and acknowledgments .
This book, California Crackup: How Reform Broke the Golden State and How We Can Fix It, is listed first among the article’s sources.
Why would this series of articles (and probably this book) be of interest to anyone outside of California? The principle culprit is argued to be “direct democracy” — the ability of the impassioned mob to impose its will. My thesis is that the past few decades has transformed mass culture — television, then the web — from a relatively conservative elitist institution into one that now tremendously accentuates and empowers that same mob rule. If it arouses passions, it can be turned into profit, and the profit will be higher if those passions are further inflamed. The dysfunction that started in California for other reasons is spreading like a metastasizing cancer throughout American democracy.
Good luck with that.
Want to read
July 6, 2011There is this idea we have, about California. It's about 'Hey, it's this so amazing place where they have sushi? And like wine that's better than France?' Judgment of Paris http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/89.... It's about 'The music is so amazing, it's like Dancing on the Streets.' California Dreamin http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/75... You know. Mamma Cass.
It's about admiring people who get really rich really quickly. It's about hey, it so isn't like the rest of the US. Come ooonn!
And yet.....
I had an idea California was something else. Not least because, as I was reading something Manny wrote here recently which referred to the idea that gaol in France isn't so bad as the protagonist has expected; I was remembering a friend who has just come out of Californian gaol. A privatised concern in the middle of the desert, prisoners shackled together as they shuffle along. This was the view that confronted his children when they came to visit.
So when I came upon JEH Smith's piece lately, I was relieved to discover that California isn't actually Mama Cass and Silicon Valley and red wine and film stars living in houses that are too big. Not only, at any rate. It is this:
It is a very moving piece. Read it! It took me to goodreads, no surprise there, and looking around found this book. This took me to Richard's review http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/... which gives links to a whole series in The Economist on the subject. What an unmitigated disaster. I had no idea. The more one reads about the US the harder it is to believe it can extricate itself from the mire. And yet there is still that hope, isn't there?
It's about admiring people who get really rich really quickly. It's about hey, it so isn't like the rest of the US. Come ooonn!
And yet.....
I had an idea California was something else. Not least because, as I was reading something Manny wrote here recently which referred to the idea that gaol in France isn't so bad as the protagonist has expected; I was remembering a friend who has just come out of Californian gaol. A privatised concern in the middle of the desert, prisoners shackled together as they shuffle along. This was the view that confronted his children when they came to visit.
So when I came upon JEH Smith's piece lately, I was relieved to discover that California isn't actually Mama Cass and Silicon Valley and red wine and film stars living in houses that are too big. Not only, at any rate. It is this:
To be of European descent and from California, by contrast, is somewhat more like being from South Africa. California was simply left blank on early modern maps of the New World, and it remains one of the earth's extremities. Here, just like the Cape, is where one runs out of continent. The fact that the 'Californians' to whom Beattie refers were annihilated, while the 'Hottentots' and other Southern African groups were only subjugated, doesn't make a crucial difference. Like the Boers, most white Californians are descended from people pushed by desperation to the edge of a continent, and, once there, pitted by a white elite against the other races they came across, either as a result of autochthony or through a parallel process of migration.
California generates and sustains its own permanent criminal underclass, largely, it seems, in order to make a perpetual spectacle of cracking down on it, of being tough on it. The criminals are Hispanicized Mestizos, descendants of slaves, and of Dust Bowl migrants (locally dubbed 'Mexican', 'black', and 'white', respectively). The prison system extends far beyond prison walls and into the domestic lives of parolees, of men made to wear signal-transmitting anklets, of everyone whose neighborhood is under constant police supervision not for their own protection but rather in order to keep them thinking of themselves as policed, to keep them conceptualizing themselves in polizeiwissenchaftlich terms as members of a problematic group.
Being policed makes a person into something at once more concrete and abstract: a 'Caucasian individual', a 'black male suspect', and so on. It transforms cars into vehicles and women into females, and generally distorts reality in the name of a supposedly scientific and dispassionate deployment of language. It makes convenient phenotypic identifiers into the outward signs of membership in real kinds: nowhere is race more reified, nowhere is it experienced as more real, than inside a prison, where personal security and survival often can only be assured through membership in a race-based fraternity.
It is true that the California prison system punishes the non-white lower classes with gross disproportion, and even, perhaps, that its very reason for being is to perpetuate, even into the post-Civil Rights era of legal equality, the disenfranchisement and diminished citizenship of African-Americans. But this principal reason has an inseparable corrollary: that it will also perpetuate the perception, among the Harvest Gypsies described by Steinbeck, that they are white and that this comes with certain natural advantages. That these advantages are never quite delivered as promised is the basic betrayal that structures the lives of the Americans I know best. http://www.jehsmith.com/1/2011/06/in-...
It is a very moving piece. Read it! It took me to goodreads, no surprise there, and looking around found this book. This took me to Richard's review http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/... which gives links to a whole series in The Economist on the subject. What an unmitigated disaster. I had no idea. The more one reads about the US the harder it is to believe it can extricate itself from the mire. And yet there is still that hope, isn't there?
July 24, 2017
An awesome read, I think especially for those of us who grew up after the passage of Prop 13. This book was a seriously educational text for me. The solutions offered by the authors are well thought out and very enticing.
November 11, 2010
Brilliant! I'm sending a copy to Jerry Brown as a thank you for winning the recent election present.
September 12, 2010
Excellent analysis of the dysfunction that plagues California's system of governance. A must read for residents living within its borders.
February 16, 2011
fun read. i swear.
March 9, 2011
Required reading for anyone living or planning to move to California.
The vast influx of people to the Golden State resulted in too many people wanting too many different things AND with too much power to do ALL of them. Whereas, in a good times, the state with the world’s eighth largest economy, spending goes up assuming it will do so forever, only realizing how bad of an idea it was when the money tide ebbs. However, the efforts to control spending and restrict government has only led to unrepresentative government and uncontrollable spending…”a system so focused on consensus that it amounts to minority rule…” p. 10.
The book is broken up focusing on how we got here, the specific problems, and how to fix them. The target is the initiative system that hijacks the state budget and legislature. Some of their solutions are, placing more checks and balances on initiatives, involving the legislature before the initiative goes to the voters, and giving them more control in changing the initiative if problems arise. The authors also focus on the restrictive Propositions 13 and 98 which have created a system that is difficult to change or improve.
Proposition 13 took away taxing authority from local government and centralized it. Instead of local government being able to control the types of services provided through local monies, their power and ability to serve was taken away. Furthermore, the proposition created the two-thirds requirement for budget and tax passage, creating a minority rule in California. A handful of extremist senators can sit back on their hands while the state struggles to pass a budget. They can hold the state hostage.
The authors also identify the polarization of Californians. We have all migrated into our own ideological camps where there isn't enough discussion and dissent necessary for an evolving democracy. The authors put forth suggestions such as open primaries and in some cases a more parliamentary system. They also suggest the government centralization in the executive branch has taken away local control and local decision-making especially in regards to property tax. Lastly, the executive branch is further examined in its schizophrenic set-up (Lt. Gov is elected separately of the Governor instead of the Gov appointing the position. Doesn't create a unified front for decision-making).
The solutions are very counterintuitive to those not familiar with California Politics. It would appear that these reforms are taking power away from the people and into the hands of politicians, when in fact, it is doing the opposite. Some other suggestions like an open primary may make the state’s extreme ideologies blend a bit more to reward moderate stances (currently it doesn’t). Overall, the authors provide practical solutions to California's problems, however, since the problem is counter-intuitive, the solutions may not be readily accepted. It would seem to the average voter that their solutions take power away from the people through filtering the initiative process even though it is the main culprit in overspending and unfunded mandates. I hope this book would inspire a closer look at the political structure in California, perhaps make adjustments for its future.
Some passages:
“California is now in its fifth wave, a breaker that took off in the 1970’s and has still not crested; a tsunami of ballot initiatives that, in the name of putting the fear of public anger in California’s professional politicians threatens the whole enterprise.” P. 18
“Things that Californians born after 1970 now simply take for granted, that you have to pay to get a police report or a permit to carry a weapon; pay when the paramedics whish you to the hospital after you fall of your bike…all started with proposition 13. It’s when the police department stopped sending out an officer after your home got broken into and cities started closing the library nights and several days a week.” P. 45
“In wealthier communities, people raised private money or passed tax override measures as Prop 13 permitted, to keep up neighborhood parks or re-open the library at night. The move toward public squalor mattered much more to people with lower incomes, most of whom got no tax cut. For them, California became a meaner, shabbier, more dangerous place, on with fewer opportunities to get ahead. P. 45
Proposition 13 made California the only state to require 2/3rds majority vote for both spending and tax bills. P. 46
Centralization has not been as good for other Californians. Prop 13 and the resulting concentration of power in the state capitol made government opaque, inflexible, and unaccountable. P. 53
Yes, the crooked assessors were out and property taxes were down. But taking taxing authority away from local government handed over local power to public employees; which led the state to take more policy authority; which made local government a less attractive place for anyone but public employees to serve; and which bread top-down policies that wasted tax dollars. P. 57
This embrace of something for nothing measures has created new fiscal reality: California has two state budgets. One is passed by lawmakers, who must, under the state constitution, at least pretend to enact a balanced document. The other budget is improvised by voters at the ballot box and is under no such restriction. Over time, lawmakers have found the task of reconciling the voter-improvised ballot-approved budget with their own budget to be an increasingly difficult task. P. 72
“…two-thirds votes have not contained spending and it blurs accountability…” Tom McClintock p. 85.
Proposition98 has locked California schools into funding mediocrity and substandard achievement while muting the state’s ability to debate the ways to improve them. P. 88
Outline for fixing the budget according to the authors:
1. Start with a budget that tells the truth (Government doesn’t present budget in a clear way, simply subtract spending from revenue and you have an honest budget picture).
2. Create a real rainy day fund, balance the budget over time and stop spending current fund needs fund. Need to set aside 15% of state budget and only spend if revenues are less than average for the previous ten years.
3. Pay as you Go (can’t use future revenues on today’s revenues)
California Fix: The Constitutional fiscal reform that California needs involves mostly subtraction, not addition. Take away Supermajority vote requirements for budgets and tax or fee increases. Take away prop 98. And no more embedding policy choices whether property tax rates or the apportionment of highways into the state’s fundamental charter; let them be regulated to statue where they belong. When it comes to fiscal provisions in the constitution, let California’s motto be: Get them Out Get them All Out. After years of gridlock and debt, California needs to give democratic budgeting a try. P. 103
Even as Californians have been sorting themselves ideologically into Democratic and Republican camps, they have also been gathering geographically into communities of the like-minded. P. 107
It seems in this section the authors prefer a parliamentary kind of representation. More parties have to form a coalition for power, but that system can still be subject to two party domination.
Some other suggestion politician changes:
Too many top level state executives elected instead of appointed, it makes them less accountable not more. Divided, but incoherent government. P. 143
Obsolete: Lt. Gov (just there if Gov dies, but until then, contradicts gov, confuses things).
Appointable: Attorney General (unified executive branch)
Electable: Secretary of State since he oversees elections should be held directly accountable.
Authors also cover efforts to divide the state longitudinally so that the coast and inland California are two separate states.
More on the initiatives:
Put simply, initiatives provide voters not with direct engagement with their government, but with a way to circumvent their state government and frustrate future majorities. P. 172
Six Ideas to fix: p. 175
1. Require initiatives as proposed laws and constitutional amendments to adhere to the same rules as legislation. (Legislatures would create language, subject to amendment or elimination from the legislature and consistent with all other state law.)
2. Establish higher standards for constitutional amendments that give voters and lawmakers complementary powers to add or subtract from the document.
3. Require any initiative that would impose supermajority voting rule s to win the same supermajority votes to become law. (55% to pass, 55% to change)
4. Require all ballot initiatives and bond measures to live within the legislative budget. (Self-financing initiatives).
5. Make it easier for voters to overturn the legislature through a more referendum-based direct democracy.
6. Lawmakers and Voters would be partners
The vast influx of people to the Golden State resulted in too many people wanting too many different things AND with too much power to do ALL of them. Whereas, in a good times, the state with the world’s eighth largest economy, spending goes up assuming it will do so forever, only realizing how bad of an idea it was when the money tide ebbs. However, the efforts to control spending and restrict government has only led to unrepresentative government and uncontrollable spending…”a system so focused on consensus that it amounts to minority rule…” p. 10.
The book is broken up focusing on how we got here, the specific problems, and how to fix them. The target is the initiative system that hijacks the state budget and legislature. Some of their solutions are, placing more checks and balances on initiatives, involving the legislature before the initiative goes to the voters, and giving them more control in changing the initiative if problems arise. The authors also focus on the restrictive Propositions 13 and 98 which have created a system that is difficult to change or improve.
Proposition 13 took away taxing authority from local government and centralized it. Instead of local government being able to control the types of services provided through local monies, their power and ability to serve was taken away. Furthermore, the proposition created the two-thirds requirement for budget and tax passage, creating a minority rule in California. A handful of extremist senators can sit back on their hands while the state struggles to pass a budget. They can hold the state hostage.
The authors also identify the polarization of Californians. We have all migrated into our own ideological camps where there isn't enough discussion and dissent necessary for an evolving democracy. The authors put forth suggestions such as open primaries and in some cases a more parliamentary system. They also suggest the government centralization in the executive branch has taken away local control and local decision-making especially in regards to property tax. Lastly, the executive branch is further examined in its schizophrenic set-up (Lt. Gov is elected separately of the Governor instead of the Gov appointing the position. Doesn't create a unified front for decision-making).
The solutions are very counterintuitive to those not familiar with California Politics. It would appear that these reforms are taking power away from the people and into the hands of politicians, when in fact, it is doing the opposite. Some other suggestions like an open primary may make the state’s extreme ideologies blend a bit more to reward moderate stances (currently it doesn’t). Overall, the authors provide practical solutions to California's problems, however, since the problem is counter-intuitive, the solutions may not be readily accepted. It would seem to the average voter that their solutions take power away from the people through filtering the initiative process even though it is the main culprit in overspending and unfunded mandates. I hope this book would inspire a closer look at the political structure in California, perhaps make adjustments for its future.
Some passages:
“California is now in its fifth wave, a breaker that took off in the 1970’s and has still not crested; a tsunami of ballot initiatives that, in the name of putting the fear of public anger in California’s professional politicians threatens the whole enterprise.” P. 18
“Things that Californians born after 1970 now simply take for granted, that you have to pay to get a police report or a permit to carry a weapon; pay when the paramedics whish you to the hospital after you fall of your bike…all started with proposition 13. It’s when the police department stopped sending out an officer after your home got broken into and cities started closing the library nights and several days a week.” P. 45
“In wealthier communities, people raised private money or passed tax override measures as Prop 13 permitted, to keep up neighborhood parks or re-open the library at night. The move toward public squalor mattered much more to people with lower incomes, most of whom got no tax cut. For them, California became a meaner, shabbier, more dangerous place, on with fewer opportunities to get ahead. P. 45
Proposition 13 made California the only state to require 2/3rds majority vote for both spending and tax bills. P. 46
Centralization has not been as good for other Californians. Prop 13 and the resulting concentration of power in the state capitol made government opaque, inflexible, and unaccountable. P. 53
Yes, the crooked assessors were out and property taxes were down. But taking taxing authority away from local government handed over local power to public employees; which led the state to take more policy authority; which made local government a less attractive place for anyone but public employees to serve; and which bread top-down policies that wasted tax dollars. P. 57
This embrace of something for nothing measures has created new fiscal reality: California has two state budgets. One is passed by lawmakers, who must, under the state constitution, at least pretend to enact a balanced document. The other budget is improvised by voters at the ballot box and is under no such restriction. Over time, lawmakers have found the task of reconciling the voter-improvised ballot-approved budget with their own budget to be an increasingly difficult task. P. 72
“…two-thirds votes have not contained spending and it blurs accountability…” Tom McClintock p. 85.
Proposition98 has locked California schools into funding mediocrity and substandard achievement while muting the state’s ability to debate the ways to improve them. P. 88
Outline for fixing the budget according to the authors:
1. Start with a budget that tells the truth (Government doesn’t present budget in a clear way, simply subtract spending from revenue and you have an honest budget picture).
2. Create a real rainy day fund, balance the budget over time and stop spending current fund needs fund. Need to set aside 15% of state budget and only spend if revenues are less than average for the previous ten years.
3. Pay as you Go (can’t use future revenues on today’s revenues)
California Fix: The Constitutional fiscal reform that California needs involves mostly subtraction, not addition. Take away Supermajority vote requirements for budgets and tax or fee increases. Take away prop 98. And no more embedding policy choices whether property tax rates or the apportionment of highways into the state’s fundamental charter; let them be regulated to statue where they belong. When it comes to fiscal provisions in the constitution, let California’s motto be: Get them Out Get them All Out. After years of gridlock and debt, California needs to give democratic budgeting a try. P. 103
Even as Californians have been sorting themselves ideologically into Democratic and Republican camps, they have also been gathering geographically into communities of the like-minded. P. 107
It seems in this section the authors prefer a parliamentary kind of representation. More parties have to form a coalition for power, but that system can still be subject to two party domination.
Some other suggestion politician changes:
Too many top level state executives elected instead of appointed, it makes them less accountable not more. Divided, but incoherent government. P. 143
Obsolete: Lt. Gov (just there if Gov dies, but until then, contradicts gov, confuses things).
Appointable: Attorney General (unified executive branch)
Electable: Secretary of State since he oversees elections should be held directly accountable.
Authors also cover efforts to divide the state longitudinally so that the coast and inland California are two separate states.
More on the initiatives:
Put simply, initiatives provide voters not with direct engagement with their government, but with a way to circumvent their state government and frustrate future majorities. P. 172
Six Ideas to fix: p. 175
1. Require initiatives as proposed laws and constitutional amendments to adhere to the same rules as legislation. (Legislatures would create language, subject to amendment or elimination from the legislature and consistent with all other state law.)
2. Establish higher standards for constitutional amendments that give voters and lawmakers complementary powers to add or subtract from the document.
3. Require any initiative that would impose supermajority voting rule s to win the same supermajority votes to become law. (55% to pass, 55% to change)
4. Require all ballot initiatives and bond measures to live within the legislative budget. (Self-financing initiatives).
5. Make it easier for voters to overturn the legislature through a more referendum-based direct democracy.
6. Lawmakers and Voters would be partners
October 4, 2017
Great book if you are interested in California politics and disfunction.
September 17, 2012
"California has become a place of paradoxes. The state's politics are the most explicitly democratic of any state, but too much of the government seems beyond the reach of democracy. California literally teems with governments -- there are thousands, from the state to the cities and counties and water districts -- but in practice the state often feels ungoverned. California's system, with its hundreds of commissions and agencies, gives authority and power to so many people that it is never quite clear who is in charge." (10)
"If these trends hold, by the year 2040 a majority of California's middle-aged citizens will be native to the state. Or, as the demographer Dowell Myers has written, California is in the midst of a 'surprising transformation' from 'a migration magnet that supplies its needs from outside the state to a more self-contained society that depends on its present members. We have become a land of settled and increasingly committed residents who share a future together.' Today's teenagers and young adults will form California's first homegrown majority." (13)
"In the two decades after Prop 98's passage in the spring of 1988, California voters considered 259 ballot measures. Of these, 127 -- nearly half -- proposed something for nothing: that is, they increased spending or reduced taxes, or both, without offsetting funds. Of the 127 measures, 80, or about two-thirds, passed." (73)
"'California needs men who can see beyond its mountains, men who can see the entire West and who realize that, as with all good things, there comes a time when the gold runs out, when the exception disappears in the rule.'" (quoting Carey McWilliams, 191-2)
"If these trends hold, by the year 2040 a majority of California's middle-aged citizens will be native to the state. Or, as the demographer Dowell Myers has written, California is in the midst of a 'surprising transformation' from 'a migration magnet that supplies its needs from outside the state to a more self-contained society that depends on its present members. We have become a land of settled and increasingly committed residents who share a future together.' Today's teenagers and young adults will form California's first homegrown majority." (13)
"In the two decades after Prop 98's passage in the spring of 1988, California voters considered 259 ballot measures. Of these, 127 -- nearly half -- proposed something for nothing: that is, they increased spending or reduced taxes, or both, without offsetting funds. Of the 127 measures, 80, or about two-thirds, passed." (73)
"'California needs men who can see beyond its mountains, men who can see the entire West and who realize that, as with all good things, there comes a time when the gold runs out, when the exception disappears in the rule.'" (quoting Carey McWilliams, 191-2)
May 23, 2011
A must read for anyone who currently lives in California, plans to move there, or has lived there for any length of time. For those that read the recent special feature in The Economist <\i>, these authors agree on most of what ails California, but differ on the scope of the solutions they offer.
August 7, 2011
Everyone knows California's system of government is broken. This book explains exactly how, and the process that led to the current mess (spoiler: we've never really had a good system here). The book also provides some well thought out proposals to improve California, including reforms to the initiative process, proportional representation, instant runoff voting, and a unicameral legislature.
November 21, 2010
I read this before the election, and it definitely swayed my vote on several propositions. Californians should read this book to better understand our constitution, legislature, and politics. And what we can do to fix all that.
March 28, 2012
I propose a ballot initiative that replaces the current inscription at the State Office Building that reads, "Bring Me Men to Match My Mountains!" with the more appropriate, "Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"
September 6, 2011
A really thoughtful approach to our state's political conundrum. A longer review here:
http://californiamwananchi.blogspot.c...
http://californiamwananchi.blogspot.c...
September 19, 2011
I thought this was an excellent introduction and overview of the California political system and why it doesn't work. I'd definitely recommend it if you live here and care about that sort of thing.
December 10, 2012
Outstanding explanation of why California is in the mess it's in. Defies the normal catechisms of the left and right by convincingly illustrating how the California constitution was built to fail.
January 6, 2014
This is a crucial read for any California resident attempting to understand how the state works, or any organizer/activist/citizen who wants to change how the Golden State works.
April 30, 2017
This is a good primer on problems with California's initiative process that make good governance difficult, albeit with a definite POV. It provides an interesting discussion about potential electoral and structural solutions. Informative and worth reading, though it was written in 2011, so it could use a new edition.
Displaying 1 - 19 of 19 reviews