Governing California: Politics, Government, and Public Policy in the Golden State
Governing California: Politics, Government, and Public Policy in the Golden State
Gerald C. Lubenow and Bruce E. Cain, eds., 372pp, $19.95
California existed as a potent myth long before it became a political reality. Cortes referred to it as “Las Californias,” believing, as many early Spanish explorers had, that it was a series of islands. Politically, California came to resemble a series of islands with distinct characteristics. There are the great urban islands on the coast—San Diego, Los Angeles, the San Francisco Bay Area—and the amorphous but increasingly powerful archipelagos of the Central Valley and the Inland Empire. Nationally, it is an island on the land, a nation within a nation, a huge demographically diverse, economically rich state that would be, on its own, the seventh largest economy in the world.
“California,” says the California Political Almanac for 1997-98, “is the planet’s most diverse society. At no time in mankind’s history have so many people of so many ethnic and national groups, practicing so many different religions, speaking so many different languages, and engaged in so many different kinds of economic activities, gathered in one place.”
Diversity and change are hallmarks of California political life—change that points to new paths that much of the nation will ultimately follow. Things happen first in California, according to the cliché. And, often, they do. California blazed the trail to direct democracy, personal politics, disdain for parties, professional campaign consultants, and modern media techniques.
This book explains how this diverse, entrepreneurial, and individualistic collection of people functions politically, how its most important institutions of government operate, and how it makes public policy. There are surprisingly few good books on California politics and government. Our goal is to give students and interested observers of state politics and government an analytical and interpretive overview of the machinery of state government, the pivotal issues that dominate political discourse, and the primary interest groups that play off one another in the ebb and flow of political life. An appendix provides an exhaustive list of web sites for electronic access to state data bases.